


Hard Labour

by AliceB132



Category: Les Misérables (TV 2018)
Genre: Capture, Chains, Choking, Cock & Ball Torture, Escape, Gang Rape, Institutional Racism, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Punishment, Rape/Non-con Elements, Toulon Era, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2019-12-07 17:02:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceB132/pseuds/AliceB132





	1. Chapter 1

_Jean was twenty-five.  He was of a thoughtful, affectionate nature and looked younger than his years.  Dark eyed, with dark hair that ran to curls because he hardly ever cut it, the girls in the village would giggle as he passed and he would blush and hurry by.  He had not the time to fall in love._

_He worked hard and sometimes used a portion of his wage to buy treats and trinkets for his sister’s children.  They would cluster round, excited, squealing, delighted by the toys or candies.  Jean would beam and his sister would shake her head at the waste and yet be smiling despite herself._

_News of the tragedy that would befall her, her children and her brother came one afternoon.  Her husband was dead._

_Jean held her as she screamed and sobbed and he swore to her over and over that he would look after them, all the while feeling dread at the prospect._

_He found extra work on the farms, labouring at harvest-time and his sister took in laundry and some sewing.  Still, they went hungry to try to feed the children; the plaintive cries of the youngest were unbearable._

_As autumn passed and winter settled in, his work dwindled to almost nothing.  He began shooting game to fill their stomachs.  Still, by the third month, their situation was desperate.  Jean went out that night with the intention of stealing food._

_His sister’s words, “Jean, what have you done?” echoed across the court as he was lead, shaking, from the dock._

_He was in denial at the sentence, in shock._

_Five years’ hard labour.  Five years… Five years…_

 

Winter had persisted into March and there had been snow at Easter.  The turn of the month saw only a small rise in temperature, with overcast skies and frequent rain.  The long journey to Toulon was wretched.  It was a bleak existence; one wet, freezing night, two men died.  Another seemed to have gone mad.  Jean retreated into himself, still trying to accept what he had done.  It was not only the theft and the shame, but what this had done to his sister and her children.  The consequences of it were too vast, the punishment so huge, it wouldn’t fit inside his head.  Like a horse refusing a fence, his mind would baulk at the attempt.

On their arrival at the prison, Jean was spotted immediately, by both inmates and guards.

Fresh meat.

Stripped and searched, Jean stood numbly amongst the day’s intake, covering his modesty.  They were handed their tattered prison clothes, then taken to be shorn.  He was trying not to cry as his hair was roughly pulled.  Handfuls of his dark curls were grabbed and hacked off with shears. A straight-razor finished the job and he was shaved back to the scalp.

They were then shackled together once again and marched through the streets towards the source of their hard labour.

His group were lead through heavy gates and into the quarry and Jean had his first glimpse of his life from now on.

Grim, hard, dangerous work for a meagre wage and even more meagre rations.  He saw there were beatings from the guards for the smallest of infractions or for none.

Jean tried to keep his head down and he worked hard.  He had easily carried two baskets of rocks on his shoulders, whereas as the others struggled with a single load.  Only one other, a huge man, six inches taller than Jean, could also carry two.

This same convict now barged into Jean in the line for water, knocking Jean’s cup to the floor.

“You think you’re as strong as me?” leered the convict and took a swing at Jean.

He blocked the blow with instinct and with ease.  He saw the surprise in the larger man’s eyes.  Jean lowered his arm and ducked the next punch, darting away.  The convict swung with his other fist, but Jean caught his wrist and stopped it dead.  The crowd of prisoners around them murmured with interest, but before things could escalate, the guards came in, whips swinging onto the larger convict’s back.  Not a single blow fell onto Jean.  A guard lead him back to the water line and he was given a fresh cup.

With aching naivety, he thought the guards were protecting him because he was new, because that was their job.  They were, in fact, protecting him because an untouched, unmarked virgin fetched a higher price, especially one as young and pretty as Jean.

Many prisoners had income from outside, they were officially to use it to purchase extra rations and the like, but most was actually used to bribe the guards.  There were all kinds of activities, all kinds of scams, but this particular network of guards had spread the word and were taking bids from the prisoners for him.  The highest would get to take him first, the next highest second and so on, until the bids ran out.

A few days’ later, Jean was chained on the planks, trying to sleep.  He had found it almost impossible to rest.  The shock that this was to be his life for five years was profound and his mind and body were still rejecting the reality.

“24601,” a guard called out.

Jean’s head jerked up.  That was his number.  The guard approached, detached him from the line of men and dragged him, shuffling in his leg irons, into the Guard Room.

There were four other officers in the room.  They were all much older than Jean and their manner was jeering and hostile.

Deeply uneasy, fear settled into the pit of his stomach.

The guard that had brought him up was removing the shackles from his ankles.

“Get your clothes off,” the sergeant ordered.

Jean looked at him in confusion.

“Do as you’re told, you stubborn little bitch.”

The tone was like the shock of cold water, icy, dangerous and so Jean obeyed.  It took no time before he stood before them, naked, with the sergeant looking him up and down.

“I almost want to fuck you myself,” he said, and they all laughed.

“Look at him, like a frightened little rabbit,” another said.  “You a scared little bunny?”

More laughter, then as it faded, the sergeant stirred.

“Right, lets get this going before we have a fucking riot on our hands.”

Two of the guards pulled the desk away from the wall and cleared the top so it stood empty.

Jean’s arms were grabbed and, with a heavy hand on the back of his neck, he was forced, face down, onto the table.  His arms were pulled across it and each hand was then bound securely to the table.  Frantic with fear, Jean turned his head to try to see what they were doing.  The thick rope pulled tight around his wrists as he twisted his body.  Hands were on him, pulling his legs apart and Jean felt rope bite into his ankles as they too were bound to the desk.

Jean was breathing rapidly, his chest pressing into the table top with every panicked breath.

The realisation of what was going to happen to him was overwhelming.

“Go and get the first one,” said the sergeant and Jean’s heart stuttered against his ribcage.

He heard the guard bring in a prisoner, he could hear their shackles rattling on the floor.

“There you go.  Make the most of him.”

He felt the man, large and slick and rigid, press against him and absolute terror engulfed his mind.  He began to desperately struggle, but it was hopeless.  Jean was screaming, “No!” as the prisoner forced himself inside.  He felt something tear and he screamed again, his head pressed to the table by the prisoner’s hand.  A deeper thrust stretched Jean wider and his abuser gave a grunt of satisfaction.  Jean was crying with the pain, his body tight against the ropes, his muscles standing out with the strain of the attack.  The prisoner leaned over him, pawing at his body with those huge, rough hands, the callouses scuffing his skin like sandpaper.  Jean could smell his breath, rotten and cloying.  With every lunge forward a sob of pain was forced from him.  Deep and long, the prisoner drove into him, the rhythm of his assault increasing.  His attacker came, reaching his hard, jolting climax inside Jean.

When he withdrew, Jean collapsed against his restraints, sobbing into the table top, his body shaking in shock.  He could feel fluid running down his legs.  Whether it was blood or semen or both, he didn’t want to know.  The reality of what had been done to him was too much to bear.

The sergeant crouched down to Jean’s eye level.

“I’ve heard men getting murdered that made less noise than that.”  He shook his head.  “Clean him up and get the next one in.”

Jean moaned in protest.

They all laughed and a few moments later he again heard the sound of shackles dragging on the floor.  He cowered against the table, unable to prevent what was coming.

This prisoner was even larger and rougher than the first and he was inside Jean with an eager ferocity.  His cries of distress seemed to make the man harder and, having torn and bloodied him further, the prisoner came loudly, spilling himself into Jean.  Lying there, violated, he sank into the depths of complete despair.

A third prisoner was brought in and the horror was unending.  He was a smaller man, hands still roughened by the labour, but almost delicate of touch.  These hands were running over his body, over his back, down his legs. Then Jean felt lips on his shoulder, then the nip of teeth, then a full, deep bite. He yelled in shock and tried to pull away.  The man bit him again, sinking his teeth deep into Jean’s skin and then he was inside him, grinding through the ruins of the previous assaults.  Jean turned his forehead into the table, unable to do anything other than suffer the attack.

 

In all, nine men would take their pleasure that night.  What seemed like hours later, when the last of them was finally done, Jean’s throat was raw from screaming, his cries now rasping and hoarse.  He ached in a way he had never considered possible, a dull, insistent thudding deep inside that was slick and liquid.

They untied Jean’s ankles, then his wrists and lifted him off the table and onto his feet.  He slumped against the desk, his body shaking with the shock, his mind numb with the trauma.  He thought he might vomit.

“I thought you said he was a strong one.  He’s off his fucking legs.  Stand up!”

It took all the strength he had left, but Jean managed to stand.  His prison clothes were thrown at him and stumbling into them, he dressed himself.  The shackles were attached around his ankles and they grabbed his arms and prepared to return him to his bunk.

The sergeant winked at him as he passed.  “Same time next week.”

Jean crawled up onto the planking as his shackles were chained in place.  He was shuddering, unable to keep from shaking.  His mind was reeling and reeling, struggling to process what had happened.

Now the guards were gone, something was being passed down the line of prisoners, from hand to hand, until it got to Jean.

“For you,” the man next to him whispered.

Several small bundles of cotton had been rolled up and stitched into wadding.  When he realised what they were for, Jean closed his hand around them and began to weep.

 

Several days after his ordeal in the Guard Room, Jean was hacking away at the rock face on one of the higher platforms.  He was one of hundreds, as below him men toiled on the various levels.

No quarter had been given and Jean had been put to work as if nothing had happened the very next day.  The unspeakable, unthinkable horror of what had been done to him had settled into his stomach like a stone.  The cold dread that it was all going to happen again crawled relentlessly over his mind.

There was a sudden commotion below; a huge brawl had broken out.  Half the guards on his section ran to assist their colleagues, the other half were struggling to prevent the rest of the convicts gawping and cheering.

Jean dropped his pickaxe and ran.  With pure instinct, in a pure panic, he bolted for the ladder and scrambled up to the next section.  It had been mostly worked of decent stone and was deserted.  Jean ran across it and climbed up to the next.  There was one guard on this disused ledge, peering over the edge, also distracted by the fighting.  He stood between Jean and the ladder.  This one last platform and he would be at the top of the quarry. 

Jean sprinted closer.  He could now see the guardsman was even younger than he was.  Dark-skinned and handsome, the guard’s attention abruptly snapped towards him.

Jean saw fear flare in the youth’s eyes.  The young guard fumbled for his musket; the strap had become caught in the buttons of his uniform and it left the weapon flailing at his back.

He ran at the guard as the young man got hold of his musket and pointed it at Jean.  He knocked the barrel sideways with his left arm and the weapon discharged in a cloud of smoke and fire.  Jean lashed out with his right fist.  Fear meant it landed with all of his considerable force.  It connected with the guardsman’s jaw and he crumpled to the ground, instantly unconscious.

Jean bent over the young man, shocked at what he had done.  The man’s eyes had rolled back in his head and he was out cold.

The sound of the musket firing had echoed around the quarry.  He had little time.  Jean left the guard and scrambled up the next ladder.  He was now at the top of the quarry, but guards had begun to stream towards him.

He stood in the middle of the cliff-top, caught in no-mans-land as guards approached on both sides.  He looked around wildly but there was nowhere to go.

“Down on your knees,” one shouted at him.

Jean didn’t obey immediately, he just stood there, fear and panic freezing his brain.

“ON YOUR KNEES OR I FIRE,” the guard bellowed.

Jean sank to his knees and seconds later the butt of a musket connected with the base of his skull.  Pain exploded, his vision blurred, then a second blow landed and everything went dark.

***

“Guardsman Javert,” the Commissaire said, “are you quite recovered from the assault?”

Javert was standing to attention in his superior’s office.

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

“I am glad to hear of it.  You have not been with the service long, but I see you have two commendations from your previous posting.  I have also read with interest your report on the incident.”

Javert straightened.

“It is a clear and honest account.  You have taken responsibility for your lapse where many in your position would not.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I was only minded to note a reprimand on your record, to stand for a period of two years.  I did not want to curtail a promising career before it had begun.”

“Thank you, sir,” Javert replied, knowing what was to come.

“Unfortunately, not every one is able to see past… what they should be able to see past.”

“No, sir,” Javert agreed.  His life had been spent having to exceed expectations.  It had been spent having to ignore egregious slurs and outright bigotry.

“Your section sergeant, backed up by the rest of his men, paint a very different picture of events.  Given he states both he and his men have all lost confidence in you, I feel it would be unwise to post you back into his section.”

“Understood, sir.”

“He is a man of good standing and solid reputation amongst the men and having spoken with the other section leaders, I have found they are of the same mind.”

Guiraud had been waiting for any excuse and the convict Valjean had handed it to him on a silver plate.

“None wish to take you, they have made this clear.  I could order them, of course.  However, I am aware that this would be a great additional burden to you.”

“Sir.”

“I have therefore decided to transfer you to the Records Department.”

Javert’s face fell.  “Records?”

“Old Lacroix needs some help and he’s a good sort.  You are a fastidious young man, I had hoped you would see a good fit for yourself there.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Javert.  “I appreciate the thought you have put into this.”

Even though Records was the equivalent of purgatory, Javert knew could quite easily have lost his job.  A different man in the chair in front of him and he would have been cashiered out of the service.

The Commissaire stood and held out his hand.  Javert took it and they shook hands firmly.

“Thank you again, sir,” said Javert.

“Good man,” said the Commissaire.  “Records doesn’t have to be for ever, eh?”

“No, sir,” agreed Javert, it most certainly did not.

 

Several weeks later, the prisoners involved in the fighting and the escape attempt were before the court.

“Guardsman Javert.”

The young officer took the stand.  He placed his hand on the Bible and swore his oath.  Valjean was in the dock, looking pale and stricken, his dark eyes striking against his ashen skin.  It was an arresting combination and Javert took no little satisfaction from it as he prepared to give his evidence.

“Please describe the events of the 15th,” the judge requested.

Having been convened to deal with the large number of cases that had arisen from the fighting, the gallery was mostly guardsmen with a few onlookers.

“I was observing the brawl from my position on the second level of the quarry,” he began.

Javert had been posted there by his sergeant from practically his first day.  Guiraud had deliberately given him the dullest, most pointless, morale-sapping duty he had been able to find – a prison guard guarding a place with no prisoners.

Javert shook himself mentally and focused on his evidence.  “It was clear my colleagues required assistance, but I did not want to leave my post.  I was considering my next action, when the convict Valjean,” he glared across at the prisoner in the dock, “appeared and ran at me.”

“It was then you suffered an assault?” asked the judge.

“It was, your Honour.”  Javert paused.  “He hit me in the face, which caused me to lose my senses.”

“Thank you.”  The judge wrote a few lines, then looked up, his eyebrow arched.  “The prisoner Valjean should have been visible to you long before he was in range to strike a blow, should he not?”

“I admit, I was unprepared for his attack.  He was able to hit me before I was able to defend myself.”

“I understand following this incident, you have been demoted?”

Javert looked the judge in the eye, his gaze level and assured.  “No, your Honour, that is not the case.”

“It is not?”

“No. I still hold the same rank today as I did then.”

“My apologies,” the judge said, stiffly.  “You may step down.”

Javert took his place near the other officers, some of whom moved away when he approached.

“Sergeant Guiraud.”

His old sergeant was now stood in the witness box.

“Your account of the escape attempt on the 15th, if you please,” said the judge.

Guiraud looked directly at Javert as he began to speak, his cool, grey eyes resting on him.  “When he eventually noticed the escape attempt, Guardsman Javert placed himself into the fleeing prisoner’s path; he gave no instruction, he gave no order, he gave no warning before firing his musket.  The prisoner merely ran into Javert, who was then knocked to the ground.  There was no direct assault by the prisoner.”

Javert felt the skin on his face begin to burn with anger and with humiliation.

“You cannot corroborate the earlier evidence?” asked the judge, clearly taken aback.

“I am afraid I will be unable to corroborate Guardsman Javert’s version of events, your Honour.”

“What could account for the difference in testimonies, Sergeant?”

Guiraud frowned.  “I understand Guardsman Javert hit his head on the rock very hard as he stumbled backwards.  His memory of events is therefore… unreliable.”

Two more men from his former section gave evidence which backed up Guiraud.  Javert glared at them, the three who were now standing together near the back of the court.  Guiraud caught him staring and smiled thinly at him.  How could they lie under oath?  It baffled and disturbed Javert.  They swore by almighty God… and then they had _lied_.  Did their hatred of him run so deep that they would mitigate the crimes of a convict, just to screw him over?

_God give me strength_ , thought Javert.  _And damn them.  Damn them all to the circle of hell reserved for those who bear false witness._

“It is clear to me,” the judge began, addressing the prisoner in the dock, “you to took advantage of the appalling behaviour of your fellow convicts to attempt escape.  Compounding your offense there was some interaction with Guardsman Javert in the commissioning of this crime.  However, I am not persuaded by Guardsman Javert, nor the evidence he has given, his own colleagues having brought this into doubt.  For the attempted escape, I find you guilty and sentence you to three years’ hard labour, to be served consecutively.  For the altercation with Guardsman Javert, two years’ hard labour commuted to thirty lashes.  Take him down.”

Thirty lashes?  For an assault on an officer, thirty lashes?  The prisoners convicted of fighting with each other had only been sentenced to between twenty and forty.

Javert heard the message loud and clear; that his word, that his physical safety, that his integrity were worth about as much as those who laboured in the quarry.

Javert glared at Valjean, whose hands were having to be peeled from the rail of the dock.  His reckless break for freedom was the sole reason Javert was in the position he was, banished to Records, humiliated in court. 

Javert stepped outside and tried to calm his anger at his colleagues’ betrayal and the actions of Valjean.  It would not do to lose his control over such men as those.  A few deep lungfuls of air and he was feeling a little better.

_Every cloud,_ he thought to himself.  At least the Valjean’s punishment lashing would be _something_ to look forward to.

 

“Sergeant Lacroix,” said Javert.

The old man looked up from his ledger, peering over the tiny eyeglasses that were perched on his nose.

“The convict who assaulted me is due to be flogged on Thursday.  I should like to witness that.”

“Of course you should, my boy!”  He slapped his hand on the book.  “And of course you will.”

“Thank you.  I will make up the time at the end of the day.”

“Pah!” said Lacroix, waving his hand dismissively.  “You have been here late on many nights.  I have noticed.  You shall have your pleasure and you will leave on time.  Then take yourself to a tavern and have an ale or two.”

The chances of him visiting a tavern to drink ale were practically zero, but Lacroix was indeed a good sort.  Javert smiled to himself and went back to his own paperwork with renewed zeal.

 

Javert was stood apart from the other guards.  They were supervising the prisoners selected to witness the morning’s punishments.

Across the yard, Valjean stood in the line of prisoners due to be flogged.  They were all shirtless and in ankle shackles, but he shone in the midst of them like white marble, a Toulon summer yet to burn him scarlet.  His back was smooth and unscarred, a blank canvas that would soon be beaten bloody.

He was unsettling.  It was disturbing to see that degree of beauty in amongst the mass of degenerate criminals.  Javert pushed the feeling to one side.  Valjean was the exception that proved the rule, that was all.

Though there was something else that marked Valjean out.  His fear.  His agitation.  It was clear when taken next to the shuffling resignation of his fellow prisoners.  Javert found his anxiety invigorating.

As Valjean’s turn came and he was dragged, resisting, towards the whipping post, Javert could see those big, dark, beautiful eyes were tear-filled and terrified. 

As his body was pulled tight, his shackled wrists hoisted high above his head, his breeches slipped from his waist to his hips.  They were stopped from falling further only by the firm curve of his buttocks.  Javert shifted his stance and he brought his hands in front of him as he felt his manhood stir.

The lash was brought down on the convict’s back with a crack that reverberated off the stone of the prison walls.  It jerked Valjean on his chains and he screamed.  It left an excellent mark across that almost alabaster skin, a shock of red against the white.  The second strike tore another anguished cry from Valjean.  Strike, scream, strike, scream.  The prisoner passed out on the eighth stroke of the whip.  They roused him and continued, but he lasted only a few more strokes before he once again slumped in the shackles.

It ran like this until the full thirty strokes had been delivered and Valjean’s back was streaming blood from a dozen of the lash-marks.  When they took him down, he was dragged past Javert and for a brief, perfect moment he could hear him, his breath ragged, moaning in pain.

Javert was awash with emotion, sated yet stimulated.  Perhaps thirty lashes was not so slight a sentence after all; this pristine youth having had the defiance beaten out of him and the discipline beaten in.  The only way it could have been bettered was if he had been giving the punishment himself.  He returned to the Records Office energised.

It would be almost three years before he would see Valjean again.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Having had time to digest this report,” said the Commissaire, “I am greatly disturbed by the contents, Javert.”

“Understandably, if I may say so.”

The payments made by prisoners for additional food and sundries should have shown a corresponding increase in the kitchens’ need for extra meat and so on.  Javert had found a constant, low-level discrepancy in the numbers.  Checking further, there were particular months, going back years, that showed much larger differences, yet the kitchens had barely registered an increase and neither had the quartermaster.  The conclusion was clear.

“I suppose this is what one gets for putting diligent, driven young men into Records.”  The Commissaire tapped his fingers on the massive set of documents.  “Has Sergeant Guiraud arrived?”

“He has, sir,” said Javert, who had passed the man on his way into the Commissaire’s office.

“Very good.  Guiraud!”

Guiraud entered the office.  Javert was stood at the Commissaire’s right hand and he was unable to keep the smirk from his lips when he saw his old sergeant.  Guiraud’s face was as grey as his eyes.

“Do you know why you have been summoned here?” asked the Commissaire.

Guiraud shifted his gaze from his superior to Javert.  “Not entirely, sir, no,” was his reply.

“Corruption is a cancer to be cut out once detected.  There have been monies from prisoners flowing into your section with no discernible flow outward.  One particular May in 1796 shows a huge spike in prisoner purchasing of well over one hundred and twenty francs all told, a ludicrous amount.  And there are no corresponding requisitions to the kitchens or quartermaster.  None.”  The Commissaire took several sheets of paper from the thick file and dropped them in front of Guiraud.  The columns of figures and tables, all cross-referenced and annotated, told the story.  “September 1796.” Another bundle of papers.  “March and November 1797.  April, 1798.  Need I go on?”

Guiraud swallowed but said nothing.

“Each spike corresponds to a new intake which included young, first-time inmates into your section.  The conclusion is as clear as it is disgusting.”

Javert was watching Guiraud intently, with the huge satisfaction of seeing the man who had wronged him squirm like the worm that he was.

“You have a choice, Guiraud.  Either you leave now, stripped of your rank with no letter of recommendation or, should you wish to formally contest this, I will have you charged with malfeasance in a public office and have you thrown into a Toulon police cell.”

It was not Javert’s place to question the Commissaire’s offer to Guiraud.  Javert had uncovered deep-seated, pervasive wrong-doing and there were so many involved at various levels, it would mean a massive scandal should it be made official.  Protecting the good name of the service in the eyes of the public was not to be dismissed lightly.

All Javert knew was that had he been seated in the chair behind the large desk, there would have been no choice offered for someone who had used their official position to enrich themselves.  The police would have been waiting to arrest Guiraud the moment he stepped into the office.  Javert was hoping the man’s arrogance would mean he would contest it, but it would seem cowardice won out as he opted to leave quietly.

Javert did have the immense pleasure of escorting Guiraud off the prison grounds and back to his rooms where he was forced to hand over his spare uniform and other prison issue items.

“Watch your back,” said Guiraud as Javert prepared to leave.

Turning towards his disgraced former sergeant, Javert smiled broadly.  “I think not.”

Guiraud snorted.

“The Commissaire may not be minded to take this further.”  Javert’s eyes glittered.  “But I think it possible the file could find its way to police headquarters.  I _strongly_ advise you leave Toulon today.”

***

As of four days’ ago, there were three more men squeezed onto Valjean’s chain, new to his already overcrowded bunk-space, but not new to the prison system.  Old hands who were clearly known to each other, they were a tight unit, probably accomplices that should have been split up but, with all the changes, the new guards and personnel, they hadn’t been.

Brutish, bullying thugs, they asserted themselves right away, targeting the weaker prisoners, taking their food, threatening those who resisted, punishing those who continued to hold out.

Valjean was not one of the weaker ones and he had so far been left alone.  He was watching them, nonetheless, as their dominance over the food was only ever going to be their opening manoeuvre.

It didn’t take long before their assaults moved from the physical to the sexual for those unfortunate enough to be chained next to them.  Valjean closed off his ears and tried to close off his mind to what was going on, their cries stirring memories he had long struggled to bury.

In the quarry the next day, their ringleader approached Valjean, expertly avoiding the attentions of the guards.

“Your name is mentioned all around,” the man said.  “You’re Le Cric.”

Valjean ignored him and carried on with his work.

“You think you are somebody?” he asked of Valjean, his ice-blue eyes unblinking even in the merciless summer sun.  He hit himself hard in the chest.  “I am somebody, I am Callard.”

Valjean glanced in his direction, then carried on loading the baskets of rocks onto the cart.

A guard wandered by and Callard started filling a basket until he had passed.  The convict with the ice-blue eyes then put his hand on Valjean’s arm.  The man was strong, was he looking for a contest?  Was he looking for a new member for his gang of thugs?  The man’s motives would remain opaque as a guard from above yelled down for them to get back to work.  His colleague, who had earlier passed them by, hurried back and gave them both a thrashing.

That night as they sat down to their food, Valjean watched as Callard took up the seat opposite, whilst his accomplices sat down either side of him.

All three of them had extra bread and full bowls, their victims having passed them their rations.

Valjean picked up his own piece of bread, but the man to his right grabbed his wrist and slammed his hand into the table.  Or rather, Valjean let him do so, as something told him not to show his advantage to these men at this time.  They knew of his reputation only and for the moment he preferred to keep them in the dark as to how little of it was exaggeration.

The bread was taken from his hand, split into three and each of the gang took a piece.

Valjean nodded to himself, if they wanted to make a show of taking bread from the strongest man in the bagne, they had done that now.  Valjean would have to wait to see what their next move might be.

He did not have to wait long.  Two days later, there was a scuffle in the quarry, several of Valjean’s chain-mates were shouting and shoving.  To Valjean’s eye it was clearly faked, it was too loud and showy but it did the job and the inexperienced guards all piled in to break up the melee.

Only then did Callard and his men approach Valjean, pickaxes in hand.

“Let’s go to the tool shed.”  Callard’s words were a suggestion, his tone was an order.

The hut a few dozen yards behind Valjean was a known spot for sex, consensual or otherwise.  Bribe a guard to have them look the other way or now, under this new regime, stage a fight to distract their callow young overseers.

Valjean brushed the dust off his hands.  “No,” he said.

Callard smiled and hefted his pickaxe, but there was a movement to Valjean’s left and a pick was flying towards his head.  He grabbed it, wrenching it out of his attacker’s grasp with his left hand.  With his right arm swinging, Valjean’s fist connected with the man’s eye with force.  Before the man could fall, he had hit him again, a bone-crunching blow that dislodged teeth.  Callard and the other convict came for him together, axes arcing through the air.  Valjean caught both weapons, twisting with the force of the attack, then against, yanking them free from the grip of his assailants.  He head-butted Callard, breaking the man’s nose, as he hurled the pickaxes into the dust.  The other convict lashed out at Valjean, catching him a glancing blow on the side of his face.  Adrenaline was flooding through him and he felt nothing of it.  He grabbed the convict and punched him in the gut.  Three huge blows and the man was on his knees, gasping and retching.  Callard had straightened, blood pouring from his nose, and came for Valjean, fists flying.  He got in a couple of shots to Valjean’s body and head, before Valjean grabbed hold of the man’s shirt.  He hit Callard about the head and face with a volley of horrifying punches, flesh and bone giving way beneath them.  Valjean let Callard drop and the unconscious man sank to the ground, his body twitching in the blood-spattered dust.

Of the three men who had attacked him, two were now insensible and the third was rolling around, his arms wrapped around his middle, moaning in agony.  In the midst of this stood Valjean, flexing his bruised knuckles, waiting patiently for the inevitable.  Finally a voice rang out.

“Don’t move!” came the order from above.

Valjean squinted into the sky, the sun bright and almost overhead.  He could just make out a guard pointing a musket at him.  He raised his hands as other guards ran towards him.  As they called for stretchers to take the injured convicts to the infirmary, Valjean was shoved to his knees and handcuffed, whereupon he was dragged back to the prison hulks for questioning.

***

The Commissaire had worked his way through the massive report, section by section, guard by guard.  The corrupt middle ranks were removed and solid, ambitious young officers like Javert were promoted in their place.

It was now Javert’s duty to oversee the more serious incidents between prisoners, to decide if they should go to court, or be dealt with by the prison’s own internal system of floggings, double chaining and the like. 

Valjean had been caught fighting in the quarry.

Javert’s heart leapt when he saw the report cross his desk, in what was only his second full week at his new post.  Of the three men Valjean had been fighting with, one had a broken jaw and fractured eye socket, another had some internal rupture and a third had been knocked into a seizure.  General scuffles and scraps between prisoners were dealt with by a summary beating from the guard or guards on duty, but with three prisoners in the infirmary, this case had been passed up the chain of command.

It was late when Javert asked for him to be brought to the Guard Room.

Valjean was pulled into the room and his wrists were shackled into the restraints that hung from the ceiling.

There was something bullish about the man he had become.  A dark, thick beard, glowering eyes, battered, beaten skin with wide shoulders and a heavy neck.  It had just taken a little time for the characteristics to emerge, Javert noted; the behaviour had always been there.  Still, he was an impressive figure, physically powerful and his beauty having hardened into a handsome fierceness.

“You get in a lot of fights,” said Javert, flicking through Valjean’s record, trying to keep his tone even despite his excitement.

The prisoner stared ahead.

“Is there anything you want to tell me about what was going on?”  He moved towards the convict, looking directly into his eyes.

Valjean met his gaze and blinked at him.  It was remarkable, that a mere blink could hold so much contempt.  It was in stark contrast to the last time Javert had seen him.  That image, burned in his brain, of Valjean wide-eyed and shaking with fear.  Javert found he was both infuriated and strangely aroused by the challenge the prisoner was laying down. 

“I can’t help you if you won’t help me.”  Javert thought it was worth a try, he’d been told it could work on the some of the prisoners from time to time.

All it got Javert was an imperceptible smirk of disdain.

“You put three of your fellow prisoners in the infirmary.  That can’t be ignored and it won’t be ignored.”

Javert could smell the filth and the grime and the sweat on him and he should have found it disgusting, and he did, but there was desire too, hot, pulsing, inexplicable desire.

“Anything --” He cleared his throat.  “Anything you want to tell me?”

His only answer was a surly silence.

“So be it.  Twenty lashes for fighting.”  Javert stood in front of the prisoner, who remained impassive.  “Two weeks' solitary for insubordination.”

That got a reaction.  Fear flickered across Valjean’s eyes, an exact echo of that look from years ago.  It caused Javert’s stomach to flutter.  As his mind spiralled back to that perfect spring morning, to Valjean’s maiden flogging, he felt himself begin to harden.

“It wouldn’t _have_ to be two weeks,” Javert whispered, his throat aching.  “I mean, if you’re not going to use your mouth to speak, it could be put to other employment.”

For one glorious, terrible moment Javert thought he was going to be kissed.  Valjean leaned in towards him until their foreheads were almost touching, their breath mingling.  Javert thought of the scratch of the unkempt beard against his skin, the scuff of those rough, cracked lips on his own… The convict’s eyes were drilling into Javert with a dark, impossible intensity.  And then it was not Valjean leaning down, but Javert reaching up…

A jolt of self-awareness shot through Javert and he staggered backwards, knocking over his chair.  His feet tangled in the upturned legs and he crashed to the floor with a yell.

The two guardsmen heard the commotion and rushed in, just as Javert was scrambling to his feet.

“GET OUT!” he bellowed at them, humiliation burning over his skin like paper scorched in the embers of a fire.

Having lured Javert into lustfulness, the prisoner’s eyes were dancing in victory.  Was that a smile?  Was Valjean actually smiling at him now?  He glared at Valjean, incredulous. 

“You think that makes you better than me?” snarled Javert.  “I’ve scraped _better than you_ from the sole of my boot,” he spat, absurdly shaken by what had just happened.  “Guards!”

Having only just been told to get out, his two men entered warily.

“Wipe the smile off his face.”

The first guard stepped up and punched Valjean in the face.  The blow rocked his head back.  He hit him again.  The next guard took a turn, throwing a punch that closed his left eye.  They bloodied his nose, split his eyebrow, split his lip and then they moved onto his ribs and stomach.  Coughing and gasping, a massive blow to his abdomen dropped Valjean to his knees.  He was hanging by his wrists, his arms wrenched straight; all the slack in the chains gone.  The guards and Valjean were panting, exhausted by the violence.  Javert too, found he was breathing heavily. 

“Thirty days in solitary, half-rations,” he ordered.  “And when you get out,” he said, crouching on his haunches, tilting Valjean’s battered, bleeding face to his, “I’ll be waiting for you with fifty lashes.”

There was still defiance in those dark, wounded eyes, but the damage that had been inflicted had tempered it somewhat.  When they unlocked his shackles, Valjean collapsed to the floor.  The guards grabbed his arms and dragged him from the room to be stripped and thrown into solitary.

Javert righted his chair and sat for a long time, nursing his bruised ego, brooding on events.  He noticed a splinter stuck in the heel of his hand, from when he’d hit the floor.  He eased out the long sliver of wood with a grimace.  The wound was deep and it welled with a spot of blood.  He put his hand to his mouth and sucked the blood away.

 _The cell for a month,_ he thought to himself, doubting very much Valjean would be grinning at anyone after that.

There was a tap on the door.  Javert looked up from his reverie and was surprised to see Lacroix stood in the doorway, holding up a bottle of brandy and a couple of glasses.

“A belated celebration,” said the old man.

“Sir, how good to see you!”  Javert’s mood shifted immediately from introspection to respectfulness.  He stood and offered the old man his chair.

“Sir?  My dear, dear boy,” said Lacroix, laughing as he sat down.  “We are now the same rank, no more sir!”

“I will try.”  It would feel very wrong not to call him, ‘Sir’ and to address his long-time supervisor by name?  Javert was not quite ready to speak with such familiarity. 

“You’re a sergeant now and with Special Supervisory duties no less.”  Lacroix uncorked the bottle and poured out two generous measures.  “I could not be more proud if you were my own.” 

Javert was taken aback by the comments.  “I… I don’t know what to say,” he stammered. 

Lacroix handed Javert his brandy.  “He would have been your age, you know, had he lived,” the old man said quietly.  “And you have his bearing.  Oh, you have his bearing.  So serious, so studious…”  The old man removed his tiny eyeglasses and wiped his eyes.

“Sir, please,” Javert said, his discomfort growing.  “Do not upset yourself.”

Lacroix nodded as he snuffled into his handkerchief.  “This was to be a celebration and look at it now!” he said.  “Silly, silly old man.”

“Don’t say that,” Javert said.

Lacroix gathered himself and took up his own glass.  “To your success,” he said.

They clinked glasses and took a deep sip of the rich, dark liquid.

“I would not be here without your support and guidance,” Javert said, sincerely.

“Your own tenacity and drive are why you are here.  And now you are here, will you grant yourself some time?”

“Sir?”

“Lacroix.  Lacroix.  Lacroix,” chided his mentor.

Javert found himself smiling.  “One day, possibly,” he said.

“You work too much, you think too much, you sit alone in your office late at night…”  Old Lacroix paused.  “What do you love?”

“I love my work,” Javert said.  It was a simple answer and it was simply the truth.

Lacroix sighed.  “My point precisely.  You are young and sharp and you have a fine career.  Now you have found what you love, it is time for you to find _who_ you love.”

Javert was pained.  He never expected to be having such a conversation, certainly not with Lacroix, and he had no response.

“My Marguerite,” said Lacroix into the silence, once again growing misty-eyed.  “Find one… who makes you forget yourself.”

Javert’s eyes wavered and he glanced away.

“Ah-ha!” said Lacroix.  “There is such a one?”

“No, no,” Javert protested.  “There is not…”

Lacroix looked at him over his glasses, entirely unconvinced by the denial.  Javert took an awkward sip of brandy, the warmth of it disguising the heat of his embarrassment.

“I’ll not tease you further,” Lacroix said, softly.

“That would be appreciated.”

The old man smiled and they talked a while, Javert now perched on the edge of his desk.  They spoke of the changes his endeavours had brought about, they talked of Lacroix’s time as an officer on the last of the galleys and of the times he had sailed the Mediterranean on patrol.

When their second brandy was drained, Lacroix made to stand.

“I will walk you back to your lodgings,” said Javert.

“Very good,” said Lacroix and clapped Javert on the shoulder.  “It will at least get you outside of these walls, if only for a brief spell.”

 

In the days before Valjean was to be released back into the general population, Javert was in good spirits and had been for some time.  He had felt calm and in control all the while Valjean was locked away and he had even shared a joke with one of his staff, much to their surprise.

The heavy oak door to Valjean’s solitary cell was to be opened at six pm and Javert wanted to be there as he was released.

Standing in front of the iron-banded door, Javert was immaculate, buttons polished, collar starched, outwardly composed and utterly professional.  Inside, he was suddenly in knots.

The door was finally unlocked and, naked and covered in filth, Valjean emerged from the darkness of the cell.  Javert was shocked, despite himself.

 _Dear God_ , he thought to himself, _the man’s eyes!_

They were haunted.  Huge and deep, they were dark pools that might have looked straight into hell.  They were now looking straight into Javert, wide, black, edging into madness, he felt pinned by his very soul.  One of the young guards crossed himself.  Javert swallowed self-consciously and he was tempted to do the same.

Valjean had lost so much condition, his cheeks were sunken and his ribs were showing.  His hair and beard had grown into a matted mess and he looked worse than a wild animal.  If Javert had come across such a creature on a country road, he would have shot it without hesitation.

Recovering himself, at least a little, he nodded to the guards.

“Get him cleaned up.”

Valjean was lead into the courtyard where several buckets of water were thrown over him.  Rags were pressed into his hands and he slowly wiped the weeks of filth from his body.  Javert watched from a distance, his face grim, as they cut back his hair and beard and finally gave him a prison uniform to wear.  Ankles shackled, he was taken back to his place in the prison hulks.

***

That the heat and stink of the sweat of hundreds could be a relief, that a set of planks for a bed could feel a luxury, that the press of men on either side could be a comfort could only mean that a man had returned from time spent in the cell.

His chain-mates had welcomed him back, grateful his actions had removed the trio of thugs from their section.  Once they had recovered, they had not been returned.

Valjean was now shackled back on his bunk.  He closed his fingers around the hem of his shirt.  The rough cotton felt strange and soft as for so long there had only been cold, silent stone against his skin.

His thoughts were a disjointed jumble, words and feelings sliding on a surface that felt as though it could give way at any time. 

He ran his hand over the wood he lay on, unsure if it was real.  There had been waking dreams whilst he had been in the cell, dreams of the quarry, dreams of the bagne, dreams of his freedom.  As real as this felt now, they had suddenly melted away, a cruel trick of the mind and a jolting return to the hopeless isolation.

Valjean did not yet trust his senses.  He was terrified something might break this spell and that he would awake and find he was back in the piercing solitude and silence of the cell.

***

That night, Javert was having difficulty finding sleep.  His mind was awash with the vision of Valjean emerging from solitary.  It was such a disturbing, troubling image; he couldn’t remove it from his mind.  That look Valjean had given him.  It had made his blood run with ice.  Javert shuddered and then shook himself.  The convict had brought it on himself.  Whatever degradation had befallen him was of his own making, caused by his own actions.

Javert began to focus on the final part of his punishment, tomorrow’s fifty lashes.  That was a fine prospect, no doubt.  The memory of Valjean’s previous flogging began to fill his thoughts; the suffering, the pain, the anguish; all were burned vividly into Javert’s mind.  He became hard at the thought of those things and, as he had done many times, he brought himself to climax over them.  Relaxation followed, his mind quieted by the release and finally, a restful night of sleep was his.

 

There was no written rule for how many lashes a man could be given at once.  It usually wouldn’t exceed forty and larger sentences could be broken-up into smaller sessions.  Each man varied in what they could take, so in reality, it was down to the discretion of the hand that held the whip.  Javert’s hand, in this case.

Valjean was shacked to the whipping post.  His back was scarred from previous floggings and, thinned by his time in solitary, his bones were visible shifting beneath his skin.

Javert lifted his arm and struck the first blow.  Valjean hissed in pain, but didn’t cry out.  Javert hit him again, but still no scream, just an exhale forced from him by the whip.  Javert hit him harder, the whip leaving a lick of raised red flesh across his back.  The tip of the lash landed again and curled around his ribs with a snap of vicious energy.  It shook him on the chains.  There was a gasp, but nothing more.

So it went on, till around the twelfth lash, the convict passed out.  Whilst his men were rousing the prisoner, Javert took the whip into his hands and began to tie small, tight knots along its length.  Maybe that would get his tongue loosened.

When he was once again conscious, Javert let fly with the modified lash.  The knots hit the flesh with wicked cruelty, biting in, taking small pieces of skin off his back.  That got a sound out of him, a choked, anguished yell.  Javert smiled and lashed him again and again.  Blood began to spill in earnest from the wounds and cries of pain were now resulting from every blow.  The prisoner passed out several more times.  His pain and helpless distress were exquisite and Javert was relishing every righteous second.  His whip arm rose and fell, rose and fell as Valjean’s screams sang out across the courtyard.  He had lost himself in the action, he had lost count of the blows he had landed, and he was revelling in the moment.  As he raised his arm to deliver another strike, one of his men reluctantly scurried forward and whispered in his ear.  He had landed fifty-seven lashes and the prisoner, already weak, was losing a lot of blood.  Perhaps things should be brought to a close?  Javert came back to himself and, looking around, he nodded curtly.

Buckets were dipped off the quayside and the water was poured over Valjean’s back.  He roared in pain as it hit and Javert smiled.  The salt water would have felt caustic; it would have burned like liquid lye in his wounds.  Another bucket was tipped over his shuddering body, then Javert reluctantly gave the order and he was taken down, to be dragged back to the belly of the ship and shackled there, to recover as best as he was able.


	3. Chapter 3

Two years had passed.

Even for November, the weather was abnormally cold.  It had been near freezing for a week; the sky was clear, the sun shone, but there was no warmth.  Away from the coast, frost coated the ground, crunching underfoot.  The hedgerows and the trees were white, as were the plumes of breath that were visible from the convicts labouring in the quarry.  The prisoners were cold, dressed only in their usual rags.  Javert’s solution was for them to work harder.

But unbeknownst to Javert, there was a change coming.  There was warm, wet air on the way from the coast of Spain.  Within a few hours, it hit the heavy, cold layer over Toulon and, out at sea, a thick fog bank began to form.  It pushed on shore, drifted inland and engulfed the town.

Visibility was suddenly appalling and Javert was nervous.  He could see less than thirty metres.  He gave the order for the convicts to down tools and be returned to the prison hulks.  It was too much of a risk to have them out in conditions like this.

The guards rounded up their charges and, as Javert had feared, there were prisoners missing at the head count.  Nine were unaccounted for and of course, Valjean was amongst the missing.

He had the prisoners quick-marched back to the docks, while he and a small group of guards remained.  They did their best to sweep the quarry for the escapees, but it was hopeless.  The world was opaque, lost to them in the blankness of the fog.

A short while later, he heard the cannon fire a single round.  The sound, like far off thunder, rolled around the the quarry walls.  They must have gotten back to the prison in good time and given word of the escape.  Now, at least, the whole town would be on alert.

 

Valjean had watched as the fog rolled in.  It had spilled over the edge of the quarry like a slow, hazy waterfall, smothering everything.

His spirits leapt as the world turned white, as the guards and his fellow convicts faded into ghosts and then faded into nothing.

Moving quickly, pickaxe in his hand, he climbed the scaffolding to the next level.  He skirted the back of the wide shelf of rock, wary and watchful.  He could hear guards ordering the prisoners back, their voices muted by distance and the thick mist.

Valjean was looking for a particular slab of rock, some distance from his workplace.  The massive block had been hacked out of the cliff-face, but due to a flaw running through the stone, it had been abandoned where it stood.  When he found it, Valjean pushed the flat edge of his pick into the gap between the block and the cliff and began to lever it.  He could have roared with the effort, but instead he gritted his teeth and applied more force.  Nothing happened for a long moment, and then slowly, slowly, the block began to move, scraping along the ground as it was cleaved away from the rock face.  Heaving his weight against the axe, he dragged the block a few more inches.

Breathing hard, he removed the pickaxe and leaned it carefully against the cliff.

The gap he had made was an arm’s width wide and he leaned into the opening.  Groping, reaching, his fingers snagged on a bundle of leather.  He grasped it, pulled it free of the rock.  He undid the straps of the small bag.  Inside, there was one white shirt, a flint and a small purse containing a few francs.  He closed his eyes and thanked God that after all this time it was still there.  It had cost Valjean, it had cost him so much and the relief that it hadn’t been found or stolen was immense.

He changed into the white shirt and shoved the red prison uniform as far into the gap in the rock as he could reach.  With the bag slung across his body and the pickaxe in his hand, he started to move in earnest through the blinding fog, clambering to the top of the quarry and then making a run for the northern fence line.

On his way, he heard horses and raised voices, but they were a far-off, distant echo.  He saw no one.  When he got to the fence, he paused, listening intently for any possible sound, but there was nothing close.

The fence consisted of cylindrical posts every few metres or so, essentially tree trunks buried in the ground, carved to a point.  Between the posts, heavy wooden slats stood vertically, fixed in place by a z-shaped brace of planks.

Once again using the flat of the pick, Valjean pried away the diagonal bracing.  It came away with little difficulty.  He did the same with the lower brace and then began to push the vertical slats away from the topmost brace.  The nails squealed as he forced the planks out further, until three of them had been eased away and laid on the ground.  He left the pickaxe next to them, stepped through the gap and ran.

Having little idea of the layout of Toulon bar the route from prison hulk to quarry, Valjean was desperate to find cover.  He sprinted down a track way and when the heavy mist began to reveal trees on either side, he darted into the woodland and disappeared into its fog-bound darkness.

 

Javert and his men regrouped back at the prison hulks.  One prisoner had been ‘recaptured’ already, though it turned out it was a confused old convict who had been found sitting near one of the carts.  Disorientated by the fog, he had been discovered by Javert and his team on their way back to the bagne.

When they’d arrived back, Javert saw that the yellow flag had been raised.  It hung limply against the flagpole but it was just as galling to Javert as if it had been rippling in a stiff breeze.  It would not be lowered until all the prisoners were recaptured.

His men were all on horseback now, apart from the dog-handlers.  They were on foot with their sleek, vicious charges.

“Watch yourselves in the fog,” shouted Javert, his horse circling and stomping.  “They won’t have gone far.  The police are searching the town.  We are taking the outskirts of the town, the quarry and countryside.  Talk to people, remind them of the reward, don’t take any risks.  You’ve all drawn two pistols?”

His men nodded and murmured their confirmation.

“I want you all back here by nightfall.  You know your search areas.  Let’s go!”

 

Every nerve was alive to the sight or sound of another soul as Valjean knelt by a stream and drank handfuls of water.  Ice cold, it spilled from his fingers and caught in his beard in glittering drops.  Without the sun to navigate by, he decided to follow the brook upstream and uphill, as it would certainly take him away from the coast and away from the prison hulks.

He trotted alongside the stream for a long while and it led him deep into the trees.  There were berries on the brambles that scuffed and scratched at his skin.  He would take as many as there were, eating handfuls whenever he was able.  All the while his senses were on alert for anything or anyone, but so far he was alone.

His eyes were also in the trees, looking for almond, hazel or walnut.  When he found them, he took as many of their harvest as would fit into his bag.  He found two flat stones and took them with him, a makeshift anvil and hammer with which to smash open the hard shells.

He moved on and shortly the trees began to thin.  A stubble field spread out in front of him.

Valjean looked up, the fog was thinner here and the sun was now visible as a perfect golden disc hanging in the blank white.  If he kept to the edge of the trees with the sun behind him, he would be moving roughly north-east and keep the chance of cover now the fog was burning off.  He moved back into the wood and set off again at pace.

 

Javert’s horse was at full gallop, charging across a field to the west of Toulon.  The dogs had picked up a scent and had flushed out a red-shirted convict.  The dogs were on him in a moment and shortly Javert and his men were pulling up beside him.

“Get them off me!” the prisoner cried. “Get them off!”

Javert nodded and their handlers hauled off the dogs.

“Are you alone?” he asked as the man’s wrists were put into shackles.

“I just went, when the fog came down.  I just went.  Didn’t wait for anybody else.”

Javert looked around, unconvinced.  The dogs were still scenting, barking and pulling at their leashes, both wanting to take off towards a hedgerow.  It could be after a rabbit, he supposed, but the dogs had been blooded to hunt men, not game.

Javert nudged his heels into his horse’s flanks and he guided her in the direction the dogs were indicating.  He drew his pistol and peered into the hedge as she walked on beside it.  He saw a pair of eyes, wide and white and blue, staring up at him from the bottom of the brambles.  He aimed his pistol and cocked the hammer.

“I see you, convict.  I am armed, so are my men.”  His group had formed around him, pistols now also drawn.  “Come out, slowly or I’ll have the dogs set on you.”

There was no movement for a second or two, and then the branches of the hedge began to shift.

“Don’t send the dogs,” said the prisoner.  “I’m coming out.”

Once the second convict was secured, the dogs were no longer scenting or pulling.  After a brief discussion, the feeling was these were the only escapees in the area.  It was well past noon and they were a good number of miles from Toulon.  Javert decided to send two of his men back with the prisoners.  A long chain was fastened to their shackles and they were tethered to the back of the guardsmen’s horses.  They set off at a trot, the prisoners having to run to keep up.

Javert, his other two guards and the two dog teams pushed on up the road for a little over two hours, the dogs roaming at the extent of their leashes.  Nothing more was found and as a chill began to grow in the air, Javert reluctantly gave the order to turn back.

 

The afternoon had become gloomy and a mist still hovered over the ground.  Valjean stopped to rest a short while.  He ate few handfuls of nuts and berries, collecting the pieces of broken shell and dropping them into the brook.  They bobbed and nodded in the current and then disappeared downstream.  Not daring to yet light a fire, he needed to find somewhere to spend the night.  It would be near freezing again soon.  He looked around and scuffed his foot over the area where he’d been sitting, getting ready to move off.

As the day darkened into evening, he felt able to step out from the cover of the trees.  He stuck to the field edges nonetheless, making his way towards a cluster of barns on a hillside.

The farmhouse was across the valley, he could just see the warm, yellow lamplight flickering in the distance.  Still, he approached the barns with caution, creeping closer, staying low.

With a wide crescent showing, the moonlight spilling through the mist gave the courtyard a hazy, dreamlike cast.  Silver and grey and black, there could be anything or anyone hiding in the shapes and shadows.

Valjean was pressed against the barn, listening, watching.  He heard a horse stomp, but nothing more.  With one last glance around, Valjean slipped inside.

There were two huge horses in the stable, their tack hanging from the walls.  Valjean took one of their spare blankets and climbed the ladder to the hayloft above them.  He shifted some bales so he could bed down behind them.  He lay in the soft straw and it cradled his exhausted body.  He drew the blanket over him, and when he finally allowed himself to relax, he fell into a deep sleep.

When Valjean awoke, it was with a start, literally with the cock crow.  As he blinked in the pre-dawn light, he could just make out the shape of something staring down from the bale above his head.

It leapt down beside him and bumped its head into his hand.  Farm cats were feral, spitting things, but this was little more than a kitten and it bumped his hand again, urging him to stroke it.  He ran his work-coarsened hand along the cat’s back and it arched into his touch.  It was the softest, gentlest thing Valjean had felt in years.  The sting of tears, as if from nowhere, surprised him.  He scrubbed them from his eyes with the heel of his hand.  He needed to get moving before sunrise.

The word would have spread by now and the reward for capturing an escaped prisoner was a persuasive one hundred francs.  Barns and stables would be searched by citizens or by the state.  He couldn’t stay any longer.  He put his bag over his shoulder and, giving the cat one last scratch behind its ear, he climbed down the ladder and cautiously left the barn.

Following the field-margins, keeping to the hedgerows for cover, Valjean headed back towards the stream.

As the sun broke over the hills, it tinged the morning with a rosy glow that slowly turned to gold.  The world shimmered, the trees alight with gentle fire.  Mist spiralled up from the surface of the water, smoke-like tendrils dancing like sprites.

The world was still and silent as Valjean put determined miles between him and the prison hulks of Toulon. 

 

“You are too hard on yourself, Javert,” said the Commissaire.  “Given the dreadful weather, I think it remarkable that all but two of the escapees have been recaptured.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Having returned to the prison the previous night, the police in the town had recovered three of the prisoners, his own party had returned two and a one further was brought in by his other team.

“The plan for today?” asked the Commissaire.

“The breach in the fence,” said Javert.  “I’ll start there as soon as the sun’s up and work outwards.  The police and the town are still on alert.  We will find them.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

As Javert left the prison building, there was a commotion at the gate.  Another prisoner had been recaptured.  A thin, sandy-haired convict was being dragged into the yard by a large, barrel-chested man in a blood-stained leather apron, accompanied by three of Javert’s men.

Javert marched over to the group.

“Was he alone?” he barked at his men.

“Yes, sir,”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir, he was found hiding in the outbuildings behind the tanners.  We searched everywhere and the dogs didn’t go for anything other than him.”

Looking at the prisoner, Javert realised he wouldn’t have been in the same section of the quarry as Valjean.

“We’ll be off at first light, so get that--” Javert indicated the prisoner, “stripped and searched and meet back here for the briefing in ten minutes.”

His whole search staff was now at his disposal.  Twelve men on horseback, six dogs and handlers.  Three teams of four, two dogs per team.

“Sella?”

“Sir!”

“Take your team and skirt east.  Saint Andre, your team will take the western section, mine will push north from the breach in the fence.  Dupont, Valjean was in your section yesterday, I want you to show me where he was working, what he was doing and who he was with.  Chabal,” he said, addressing the dog handlers’ senior officer.

“Sir.”

“The dogs have been on his bunk, they’ve got his scent?”

“They have, as best they can in that stink.”  Tall and fit and strong, he could run with his dogs all day and he’d made sure his men could too.

Sella and Saint Andre split away and took their teams off into the countryside.  Javert took his team down to the quarry and to Dupont’s section.

The dogs were carried down and were jumping and running almost immediately, pulling towards the ladder at the far side of the ledge.  Javert frowned.  That ladder was in the opposite direction to the breach in the fence.  It would have been quicker for Valjean to use the ladder they had just come down.

The dogs were given some slack and they were scrambling at the ladder.  Chabal and the other handler followed and helped them up.  Javert emerged onto the next level and the dogs were halfway across, whining and barking as they pulled their handlers towards the far edge.

What the hell had Valjean been up to, all the way over here?

The dogs were leaping and barking at a huge block of disused stone.

“I reckon there’s something in there,” said Chabal, indicating the gap between the cliff-face and the block.  “They’re going mad.”

He stretched his long arm into the gap and smiled as he pulled out the red, sweat-stained shirt of a convict.  The dogs went wild.  There was no doubt it was Valjean’s.

Why had he come all this way just to shove his shirt into a hole?  There must have been hundreds of places he could have discarded it without coming halfway around the quarry.

“Move the dogs back,” Javert said.

He was examining the area around the slab of rock.  He crouched down at its base.  He could see where it had been moved away from the face of the quarry; it had gouged an arc in the ground beneath it.  He ran his fingers over the mark.  It was fresh and pale against the darker yellow of the more weathered stone.  It overlaid an older, similar scrape.  He moved his eyes up along the back edge and then traced it with his fingers.  About two-thirds of the way to the top, there were wedge-shaped scuffs in the stone.  Marks that would have been left by a pickaxe being used as a lever.

“He’s been planning this,” Javert said, turning to address his men.

They looked at him and then at each other.

He brushed the grit and the dust of the quarry from his hands.  “He had something hidden here, a change of clothes, possibly food, maybe a weapon.  We need to get moving.”

 

With the trees giving way to continuous farmland, Valjean was going to be forced into open country.  He stood at the edge of the treeline, reluctant to give up their protection.  In the distance, to the north he could see a huge hill rising above the horizon.  To the north-east, Valjean could see a scatter of houses either side of a road.  The road, which was little more than a bridleway, was open to fields and spying eyes for miles around.  He could see activity in the village, tiny dots moving silently and workers in the fields, tending to rows of olive trees.  With the fog gone, the weather warming and his cover running out, it wasn’t safe to continue on in daylight.  Weighing his options, he decided to rest up until he could make his way through the village in darkness.

 

The dogs had a strong scent and had led Javert and his men deep into the woods.  They had dismounted and were guiding their horses carefully through the trees, following the tireless dogs.

There was little sign anyone had been here, an occasional depression in the ground that could have been a footprint, but nothing more.  Without the dogs, they would have had no clue he’d come this way.

They followed the dogs on a line away from the stream, across the boundary of a field and on towards a cluster of stables and barns.  Here there were clear footprints around the edges of the field.  A definite sign at last and Javert felt his blood begin to run that bit hotter.

The farmer was nowhere to be seen, so they searched the buildings without his presence.  The dogs were keen on the stable block and, having climbed up to the hayloft, it was clear to Javert that Valjean had spent the night there.  He could see the place were he had slept, the shape of the man still visible in the hay.

They were close now, a few hours behind at most.  Outside, the dogs were pulling and leaping, drawing them back towards the woods.

 

Valjean was sat against a tree with his eyes closed.  Slanting mid-afternoon sunlight played over his face as a gentle breeze began to rock the branches high above him. 

He wasn’t asleep, he was listening, his head cocked to one side.  There had been a distant sound, the sound of something moving through the undergrowth.  Possibly a deer, possibly a boar.  The sounds came again, a little closer this time.  Valjean opened his eyes and stood.  He turned towards the darkness of the dappled wood, his eyes searching for any sign of movement in the mosaic of light and shade. 

As he watched, shapes began to move and emerge from the tangle of branches and shadows. Horses, then men, then dogs.

Valjean bolted.                                                                                                      

 

Dupont cried, “There!”

His arm was raised, pointing to their right.

Javert’s head snapped around.  He glimpsed a darting figure, a flash of white breaking cover at the edge of the trees.

Javert gave Chabal the order and the dogs were loosed like dark arrows.  They shot across the ground, fixated on their target.

Javert and his men raced to be free of the trees.  The moment they were clear, they mounted their horses and tore across the field at a gallop.  They leapt a hedgerow, hooves thudding into the earth of the next field, where the dogs were moments from taking down Valjean.

 

He could hear the dogs behind him, their ragged, panting breath an echo of his own.  Valjean knew he couldn’t outrun them, so he turned to take them on.  One leapt at him and he raised his left arm.  Its teeth sank into his forearm and he yelled in pain.  He kicked out at the other and caught it square in the chest.  It fell to the ground, whining in distress.  The other dog was hanging off his arm, its teeth tearing his flesh.  Valjean grabbed it around the neck and crushed its throat beneath his hand.  As the dog flailed and choked, its jaws released their grip.  He dragged it off his arm and threw it to the ground.  He was instantly running, though now he could hear hoof beats and the cries of men at his heels.

 

“Spread out!” yelled Javert.  “I want him surrounded!”

The two men on the flanks spurred their horses on and they began to pull ahead of Javert and Dupont.  The dog handlers were behind them, tending to their stricken animals.  Valjean was less than a hundred yards away.  Javert drew his pistol as they thundered closer.

“Halt!” Javert bellowed and he fired a warning shot.  He saw Valjean give a wild-eyed glance over his shoulder.

His men were pulling ahead of Valjean now and in moments the four men on horseback had him encircled.  The convict pulled up sharply as there was nowhere left to run.  Javert and his men brought their horses to a stop and all had drawn their pistols.

“Get on your knees,” Javert ordered.

Valjean glowered at Javert, breathing heavily, blood dripping off the fingers of his left hand.

Javert was about to repeat himself for the second and final time, when Chabal came bursting into the circle and hit Valjean in the face with a hay-maker of a punch.  Valjean was knocked to the ground, blood from his nose and mouth splashed across his face.

Chabal was looking down on him.

“You killed my dogs,” he said and kicked Valjean hard in the stomach.  Chabal picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and punched him in the face again and again.

“That’s enough, Chabal, get off him,” said Javert.  “I said OFF!”

Chabal threw Valjean to the ground and as a parting gift, spat in his face.

Javert dismounted and his guardsmen followed.

“On your knees, Valjean,” said Javert, his tone firm and measured.

The convict struggled to his knees, his face running with blood and Chabal’s spittle.

“Throw the bag over here.”

Valjean wiped his face on his sleeve and only then did he obey.  He pulled the strap over his head and threw the bag at Javert’s feet.

Javert smiled thinly and stooped to pick it up.  He emptied the bag onto the ground but he was disappointed at the contents.

“Hands on your head,” Javert demanded.

Still breathing hard, Valjean slowly lifted his arms and laced his fingers around the back of his neck.  Defiance and defeat were at war on his face as Dupont patted him down.

“Nothing,” Dupont reported.

“I want him in cuffs, not shackles,” said Javert.  “And behind his back, you can’t trust this one.”

“Sir,” said Dupont and took the set of handcuffs from his belt.  He locked them around Valjean’s right wrist and twisted his arm into the small of his back.  He pulled his bloodied left arm down in the same manner and fastened it in place.

Now Valjean was subdued and restrained, Javert took in a deep, satisfied breath that swelled his chest.

“Was it worth it?” Javert asked, moving closer.

Valjean’s head was bowed and turned away from him.

“Look at me when I speak to you.”

There was a long beat of disobedience, and then Valjean lifted his head and lifted his eyes.  They locked with Javert’s.  If the prisoner hadn’t been cuffed and on his knees, that glare might have made Javert take a step back.  There was rage in those eyes and Javert was certain of two things; Valjean wanted to tear him to pieces and that he was entirely capable of doing so.  The two dead attack dogs were testament to the damage he was able to inflict.

“Was it worth it?” he repeated.

There was no reply.

“A day and a half, if that.”

He was met with silence.

“Three dozen hours that are going to cost you three more years.  At least.”

Valjean dropped his eyes.  His throat was working and his lips parted, but still he didn’t speak.  No, that wasn’t quite right; _couldn’t_ speak, Javert noted with interest.  He put his hand on the prisoner’s jaw and lifted his head.  Valjean’s eyes shone with an intense brightness even in the weak light of a winter sun.

Javert smiled.  “I’ll take that as a no then, shall I?”

The prisoner pulled his head away and again lowered his eyes.

Javert walked back to his horse and took out a long length of chain from one saddlebag and a heavy iron ring from the other.  He threw them onto the ground in front of Valjean.

“Collar him,” Javert said to Dupont.

Dupont picked up the iron collar and fixed it around Valjean’s neck.  As Javert watched, the convict closed his eyes, the full weight of the ironwork now resting against his throat.  The length of chain was attached and as Dupont let it go, it fell down the centre of Valjean’s body with a dull rattle.  The rest of the chain collected in a heap between his knees.

Dupont and one of the other guards grabbed Valjean’s arms and pulled him to his feet.  Javert stepped forward and ran his hand down the chain that hung against his prisoner’s chest.  He then took hold of it and gave the chain a jolt.  However, Valjean needed further encouragement before he’d move, so Dupont shoved him hard in the shoulder.  They led him over to Javert’s horse where the end of the chain was attached to the saddle.  Javert then gave the order to move out.

“Sir?” said one of his men.

“What?”

“If he falls chained like that, he’ll break his neck.”

Javert cast his eye over the dejected Valjean.  “He’d better not fall, then.”

As his man walked past him, Javert grabbed his tunic.

“Question my orders in front of a prisoner again,” Javert said, “I’ll break yours.”

The guardsman, shaken, spoke rapidly.  “No, sir.  I won’t, sir.”

Javert released his grip and then smoothed the creases in the man’s uniform with the back of his fingers.  “See that you don’t.”

***

Keeping up with Javert’s horse, Valjean was right at his limit.  It was difficult enough to run being yanked along by his neck, it was near impossible with his hands cuffed behind his back.

When Javert eventually brought his horse to a stop, Valjean collapsed to ground, his chest and stomach heaving oxygen into his lungs, his heart slamming against his ribs.

They had stopped by a river to allow the horses to drink.  When he had recovered somewhat, Valjean was detached from Javert’s mount and he and the horses were led down to the river, the horses by their reins, Valjean by the chain around his neck.  Chabal kicked him to his knees and he splashed into the water, the pebbles and shale of the riverbed shifting beneath him as he fell.  He leaned down into the water and took several deep, ice-cold gulps.

There was a hard shove from a boot and Valjean went sprawling into the freezing river.  With his hands secured behind him and the heavy chain around his neck, it took long, panicked moments before he could to struggle to the surface.  Hands grabbed his arms, he was pulled out of the water and thrown onto the bank, coughing and choking and shaking with the cold.

“Stop pissing around, Chabal,” said Javert, from higher up the bank.  “I want to get a few more miles in before dark.”

Valjean and the horses were brought back onto the road and he was once again tethered to Javert’s saddle.  They mounted up and moved off.  Valjean, soaking wet and bitter cold, was dragged along as before, only just keeping pace with Javert’s horse.

Someone who was able to keep pace with ease was Chabal, who was making it his presence felt at Valjean’s shoulder.  There were glares, nudges, the occasional clip of his heels that made Valjean stumble.

“I had to leave my dogs in a ditch, you piece of shit.”

Javert turned around, leaning on the back of his saddle.  “How many times do I have to tell you?” he said to Chabal.  “Leave him alone.”

The man did as he was told and dropped back, but as he ran on, pulled behind Javert’s horse, Valjean could feel Chabal’s eyes burning into the back of his head.

 

They carried on until well past sunset, but with the light fading quickly, Javert called them to a stop.

Valjean sank to his knees, dragging cold evening air into his burning lungs.

“We’ll bed down here,” Javert said.  “Through the night we’ll keep a two-hour, two-man watch and keep the fire going.  You,” said Javert to his youngest guardsman.  “Chain him to that.”

He had nodded towards a large tree on the edge of the clearing and Valjean saw him pass the boy a padlock.  The boy walked over and took up the chain.  Pulling him to his feet, he led the shattered Valjean towards the tree.

Chabal and the other dog handler approached them.

“We’ll sort this,” Chabal said to the boy.

“But… um…”  He looked over his shoulder at Javert, but Javert was across the clearing, his back turned, attending to his horse.

“Fuck off,” said Chabal, “there’s a good lad.”  He took the padlock out of the guard’s hand.

Valjean’s eyes were flicking between the young guardsman and Chabal, desperate for the boy to stand his ground.  The young man didn’t move for a long moment, but then stepped back.

Chabal took the chain from the guardsman.

“Actually,” said Chabal, “you can help hold him.”

Again, the boy hesitated, but it wasn’t long before he did as he was told.

The boy and Chabal’s man grabbed Valjean’s arms.  They dragged him closer to the tree until they were standing beneath its thick branches.

“You choked my dog, I’ll fucking choke you.”

Chabal threw the end of the chain over one of the branches and pulled.  The iron ring slid up from the base of Valjean’s throat and pressed hard into the angle of his jaw.  He began to struggle as his air was constricted.  The two men held him firmly as he fought against the choking hold Chabal had him in.  The man’s eyes glittered with hate, both hands on the chain, keeping the tension on.

A voice rang out.

“What did I tell you?” Javert shouted.

As he reached them, Javert snatched the chain from Chabal’s hands.  Valjean hung there as Javert maintained the pressure.  He was gasping for air, his shackled hands grasping uselessly behind his back.

“If I catch you or your man near him again, you’ll be on a charge.  Is that understood?”

Chabal nodded.  “It is.”

“Go with Dupont and get firewood.  Padlock.”

Javert held out his free hand.  Chabal dropped the lock into his hand and the three men moved off.  Javert’s attention then turned to Valjean.

“Do you want to hang like this all night?” Javert asked him.

Gasping, hardly able to breathe, he managed to say, “No.”

Javert pulled a few more links over the branch and Valjean was wrenched higher, his spine stretching.  A choked gasp of distress was dragged from him.  He shifted his body, trying desperately to remove the pressure from his throat.

“No, what?”

“No… sir.”

Javert nodded and let the chain slip down off the branch.  Valjean sank to his knees, taking in huge, whooping breaths, his body frantic for air.

“When I show you mercy,” Javert said, running the chain around the base of the tree and padlocking it in place, “I expect to see some gratitude in return.”

Chained on his knees in the dirt, what little fight Valjean had left drained out of him.  He was exhausted, physically and mentally.  He lifted his head, his throat burning, his eyes stinging.

“Thank you,” he said.  His voice, roughened by choking, roughened with emotion, was barely above a whisper. 

Javert was standing over him, staring at him with intolerable satisfaction.  Valjean couldn’t hold his gaze and felt forced look away.

“Good enough,” said Javert, “for the moment.”

Javert stalked back to the group of guards.  Valjean watched him, giving orders and organising the camp.  Chained by his neck like a dog, Valjean slumped against the tree, his body and mind a mess of pain and discomfort and distress.

It had all been for nothing.  In fact, for less than nothing, as he was now in this wretched situation, with more punishment to follow.

Later, two men brought him food and water and they shackled his hands in front to allow him to eat.  Each mouthful of food was a struggle to swallow; his throat was aching and raw.  When he finally managed to finish, he took the chance to look at the throbbing wounds on his left arm.  They looked deep and dark in the flickering of the firelight, the only good thing that could be said of them was that they were no longer bleeding.

The young guard came over sometime later to collect his bowl and cup.  He also had a blanket with him.  He held it out to Valjean, who reached up and took it in his shackled hands.  The boy was looking at him, pity and sorrow on his face.  A thin, green, stick of a boy, daring to look at him like that?  Valjean felt a snarl curl onto his face; he could snap a lad like that in two.  The boy took a step backwards.  Valjean turned his head away and drew the blanket tightly around him.

Despite his exhaustion, dark thoughts about the guards and dark thoughts about himself would keep him awake long into the night.

 

A sharp kick in the back of his thigh jolted him out of a fitful sleep.  Dupont pushed a bowl into his hands.

“Hurry up and eat,” he said.  “We don’t have all day.”

It was dawn and the group of guardsmen were finishing their meal and beginning to pack up the camp.  When they were ready to move out, Valjean’s hands were once again cuffed behind his back.  His whole body was stiff and cold and aching.  They set off and it was pure torture, to once again be at the brink of collapse for mile after mile, knowing that should he fall, there was no way to save himself. 

They entered the city limits of Toulon around eleven that morning.  Javert had slowed his horse to a walk and he would turn to look down at Valjean often, smirking, preening, and self-righteous.  Although the drop of pace was a relief, Valjean was sure Javert had done it for no other reason than to prolong his parade through the streets in chains.  The curious, apprehensive townsfolk soon overcame their fear, found their voices and began to shout abuse and hurl curses at him.  Now he was burning with shame, Valjean no longer felt the cold.

“Bastard!”

“Burn in hell!”

“Hang him!”

Children joined in, emboldened by the adults, and they started to throw stones.  Valjean dodged them as best as he could, but unable to defend himself, several hit him on the body, several hit him on the head and face.  One drew blood from his cheekbone and, in turn, it drew a cheer from the crowd.  The trickle of blood was hot on his skin and it ran down his face like a tear.

He kept his head down as he was dragged by his neck through the town, the volley of catcalls and jeering following him all the way down to the docks.

As they got closer, Valjean began to see glimpses of the stone turrets of the bagne.  He hadn’t thought it possible for his heart to sink lower, but the sight of the towers that had loomed over him for so many years pushed his spirits into the very depths.

The gates were opened and he was dragged inside the walls. 

 

“You’re dismissed, good work,” Javert said to Dupont and his men.  “Take the rest of the day.”

Valjean, exhausted, humiliated and handcuffed, was left alone with Javert in the otherwise deserted Guard Room.

“Chabal wants to bait you like a bear,” said Javert, slowly pacing in front of the kneeling Valjean.  “He wants to chain you in the courtyard and set what dogs he’s got left on you.”

Valjean tried to remain impassive, but the thought of it was horrifying.  From everything he’d seen of Chabal, even if he didn’t wholly believe in a courtyard baiting, he certainly believed the man wanted him dead.

“Who do you think is standing between you, and Chabal having you ripped to pieces?”

Valjean lowered his gaze to the floor.

“Who is it?” Javert pressed, clearly delighting in forcing the admission from him.

Valjean swallowed, his throat still aching from Chabal’s mock lynching.  “You, sir,” he said, nausea roiling in the pit of his stomach.

“That’s right,” said Javert.  His eyes shone like jet and his smile was that of a shark.  He paused in front of Valjean, leaned against the desk and picked up the chain that hung from Valjean’s throat.  He wrapped two turns of it around his fist.  “We spoke of gratitude last night.”

Valjean closed his eyes.

“I’d like you to show me how grateful you are.”

When he opened his eyes, directly in front of him, Valjean could see that Javert was growing hard.  He looked away, his breath and heart rate picking up.  From the edge of his vision, he could see Javert unbuttoning his trousers to free his half-hard erection.

“Show me,” Javert breathed, tightening his grip on the chain, drawing Valjean closer.

He pushed his fingers into Valjean’s mouth and Valjean did not resist.  He had been forced into this act before, many times, but he had foolishly thought such things to be in his past. 

“You know what to do,” Javert whispered.

He was pushing his fingers deeper, forcing his mouth to open wider, whilst guiding Valjean’s lips onto his fully-hardened prick.  Valjean’s shackled hands closed into fists behind his back.  Javert’s free hand now curled around the back of Valjean’s neck and he held him there, between the tension on the chain and the firm grip of his fingers.  Javert shifted his hips and thrust his whole length into Valjean’s mouth.  He gagged as Javert pulled on his iron collar, forcing him to take him into his throat.  It closed around the tip and Javert groaned in pleasure.  Valjean gasped for breath as Javert withdrew for a moment before he pushed past Valjean’s lips again and slowly slid himself over Valjean’s silenced tongue, rolling his hips and pulling on the collar so that he grazed the back of Valjean’s throat with every stroke.

Valjean dizzied, the taste and the weight and the shape of Javert in his mouth dragging forth a stream of memories, long buried except in nightmares, of the myriad men who had been forced upon him.  Javert was bucking harder now, his moans deeper and longer, Valjean’s own suffocated cries stifled by the depth of Javert’s thrusting.  When Javert came, he came hard, his hips lifting whilst he pulled down on the collar, forcing himself into Valjean’s throat, forcing him to swallow his seed or choke.  Javert finally slowed, but still half-hard, he slid himself into Valjean’s mouth one, two, three more times, until he softened fully.  Panting, he released Valjean from his grip and leaned back on his desk.

Valjean coughed up and spat out what he could of Javert’s semen.  The taste of it, the bitter tang of memories it conjured, the violation that it meant; the need to vomit was overwhelming.  Valjean was shaking with repressed shock and impulsive anger.  When he had cleared his mouth, he fixed his eyes on Javert.

“You’re no better,” he said, unable to keep the contempt from his voice.

Javert, who had been the picture of release, leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.  “What?” he demanded, still breathing heavily.  “No better than what?”

Valjean looked at him for a long moment, and then petulance won out over self-preservation.  “Them as you cleared out two years back.”

Javert took a second to register what had been said.  When it did, he backhanded Valjean viciously across the face.  Valjean stumbled on his knees, his head hanging as his senses recovered from the violent blow.  It had opened up one of the cuts Chabal had inflicted and he began to bleed.

“Your life is in the palm of my hand,” Javert said, his voice low and deadly calm.  He wrenched up Valjean’s iron collar, forcing him to lift his head.  “You’d do well to remember that.”


	4. Chapter 4

Valjean’s new bunk-mate, Dusautoir, put his lips close to his ear one humid night in late June.

“There is an escape planned,” Dusautoir whispered.

Valjean turned away from him.  He had been freed from the double chain only nine days before.  After two years in chains, shackled twenty-four hours a day in that festering hell, Valjean needed to keep his head down.  He was weak, sickness and confinement having taken their toll on even his immense strength.  He was in no state to be taking on that kind of risk.

Dusautoir put his scrawny hand on Valjean’s arm.  “A mass break out, we need many to agree to go at one time or it will not work.”

Valjean pulled his arm away from Dusautoir.  “Leave me alone.”

“This cannot be,” Dusautoir hissed.  “I thought you would be with us for sure.  They say you are always looking, always trying.”

Valjean hunched his shoulders and curled his arm under his head.  “I said leave me alone.”

“I did not think the great _Le Cric_ would turn out to be a coward.”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“Come on!  We go on the night of the fourteenth.”

Valjean turned to stare at Dusautoir in disbelief.  “The fourteenth?  Are you mad?”

“It will be a big, ‘Fuck you,’ to them to go on that day.”

Valjean snorted.  “A disaster is what it’ll be.”

“No, we will rise up in our own revolution!”

“Did a rock fall on your head?”

“I am serious,” Dusautoir insisted.  “We can come together, the two of us, then more will follow.”

“There’s no ‘we’ and there isn’t any ‘us’.  You’re talking nonsense.”  Valjean’s patience was wearing thin.  “You’d do best to forget this and let me sleep.”

“Valjean!” Dusautoir persisted, again pulling on his arm.

Something snapped and in the blink of an eye, Valjean had his hand around Dusautoir’s throat.  He slammed him into the planking, pinning him there.  Even weakened, Valjean still had the beating of half of the men in the bagne.  He leaned over Dusautoir, glaring into his eyes.

“Let. Me. Sleep.”

“Alright,” croaked Dusautoir.  “Alright, I get it.”

Valjean released him and once again turned his back on his aggravating chain-mate.  This time, Dusautoir remained silent and Valjean was able to settle himself.  Eventually he fell asleep.

 

Javert had the 30th of June etched in his mind.  After two years in double chain, Valjean was to be returned to the general population.  When the judge had handed down Valjean’s sentence for his thirty-six hour ‘vacation’, it had been a bitter-sweet moment.

Three further years of hard labour were to be expected and welcomed, as was the addition of two more years for resisting recapture, refusal to obey a lawful order from an officer of the state and for the wilful destruction of state property.

What had come as a nasty surprise to Javert, was the judge’s instruction that those two additional years would be served double chained.  The sentence of the court meant that Valjean, who had only just been delivered into the palm of Javert’s hand, would now be taken from him.  He would be shacked for two unbroken years in the double chain _salle._   Chained to his bunk night and day next to the lowest of the low, the multiple murderers, the serial rapists, the child killers, those for whom a life sentence was not enough of a punishment.  Valjean would serve all of those seven hundred and thirty days confined to that lowest deck, a deck that was below the waterline and so had no windows, where the air was thick and dense with the stink of more than two dozen men and their filth.

But now, finally, after a two year hiatus where Javert had felt becalmed, the day had arrived.  He awoke before dawn and was dressed and on his way to the docks before the sun had risen.  The anticipation he felt was akin to that day Valjean had been released from solitary.  His nerves were jumping as he descended into the bowels of the ship, down to the guards’ ante-room that served the double chain _salle_.

The guards on duty leapt to their feet on his arrival.  It was not the place for one of his rank to be seen, so their surprise was understandable.

“24601,” said Javert.  “Due for release today.”

“24601, sir?” the older of the two guards said, seemingly confused.

“Was I unclear?” said Javert, irritation growing.

“No, sir, not at all.  It’s just –“  The man looked panicked.

“What’s the matter with you?” Javert snapped.  The verbal fumbling from his guardsman was unprofessional and provoking.

“Ah… he was released on the twentieth, sir.”

Javert’s already stern expression fell into a scowl.  “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sure of it, er… I’m sure... I’m sure I have the documents here.”

He began to search through the files on their shelves, rifling them in a desperate attempt to show Javert he was not an incompetent fool.

“Here, sir,” he said with audible relief, seizing on a particular sheet.

The man pushed Valjean’s document into Javert hand and he was then clearly able to see it stated the release of 24601 was to be 20th of June.  Some catastrophic clerical error had occurred in the copying of dates from the court documents.  Javert closed his eyes and closed his fist onto the paper.  He then ran down the steps and into the stinking _salle_.

The smell was horrific, there was hardly any air and hardly any light and it took Javert’s eyes time to adjust to the darkness.

The chained men lifted their heads at his sudden arrival.  They were sallow, pale fish in a dank, dark cave, but as Javert looked along those drawn, pallid faces, it was clear that Valjean’s was not among them.

 

Rumours of Dusautoir’s plan were all over the ship the next day.  Some were near the mark, others wildly inaccurate.  There was so much chatter about it, so many muttered mentions in the line for their ladle of gruel, Valjean was uneasy.  Javert’s network of informers would be bound to feed news of the various plots the back to the guards.

When Valjean’s _salle_ was held back and not sent to the quarry that morning, his fears were vindicated.  The guards returned them to their deck and stood them at the ends of their bunks.

They had been there some time, shuffling and fidgeting in the stuffy confines of the galley when Javert came down the short flight of steps.  All eyes turned to him and he paused at the bottom of the stairs.

“It has been brought to my attention there is an escape attempt planned,” said Javert to the room.  “There are various rumours.  Elsewhere, there are stories of all sorts of plots and schemes, but here …”  Javert paused and looked along the rows of prisoners until his eyes came to rest on Valjean.  “Here, they converge.  Here, there is consistency.  Here, there is but one plot.”

Javert began to slowly walk down the line of prisoners, his back straight, his hands clasped behind him, the slow cadence of his heels on the deck as regular as a drum beat.

“We know what the plot is, a mass escape.  What we don’t know is who the ringleaders are or when it’s due to go off.”

When Javert arrived in front of Valjean, he paused and looked directly into his eyes.

“You’ll be taken one by one for interrogation.”

Javert moved on.

“We will get to the bottom of this, I can assure you of that.”

He prowled back along the line to stand once again at the foot of the steps.  He turned to face the prisoner nearest to him.

“Bring him,” Javert said to his guardsman, ascending the stairs.

The guard grabbed hold of the prisoner and dragged him up the steps behind Javert.

A good while later, the first prisoner was returned and the second man in the line taken.  Some three hours later, the man next to Valjean was returned.  He wasn’t making any eye contact.  Valjean took a deep breath and prepared himself to be taken.

The guards walked past him.

And then they walked past Dusautoir, taking instead the man to his left.

Valjean cursed under his breath.  Someone was talking.  He dared a glance at Dusautoir, who looked petrified.  Valjean cursed again, this time cursing his misfortune to be chained next to an idiot with a big mouth.

When they finally came for him, when all the other prisoners in their _salle_ had been questioned, Valjean was taken at the same time as Dusautoir.

As they were split up, Valjean muttered in a convict’s whisper, “Keep your mouth shut,” to his chain-mate.

Dusautoir was taken to the deck above and Valjean lost sight of him as he was dragged into the Guard Room and shackled to the ceiling.  The two guards who had brought him up stood outside the door.  Javert was nowhere to be seen, but Valjean was sure he could hear him, at the very edge of his perception.  He was unable to make out any words, muted as they were by the deck between them, but to Valjean the tone and character of that voice were unmistakable.  He could only hope that Dusautoir was made of sterner stuff than he appeared.

As he stood there, long minutes turned into something closer to an hour.  Part of Javert’s plan, no doubt, to have him held in discomfort and given time to dwell and brood on what Dusautoir may or may not be saying.

After a time, he heard footsteps.  Deliberate, measured, determined, they grew louder and louder.  Valjean closed his eyes as Javert entered the room.

 

“I have had a most disturbing and irritating morning,” Javert said.

His prisoner said nothing as he approached.

“You and Dusautoir were having an interesting discussion last night, I am led to believe.”

There was no reply, only a small movement, a squaring of his shoulders showing his intent.  Javert smiled to himself.

“I’ll give you the same chance as I gave him.  Tell me who the ringleader is and you won’t be named on the indictment.  Keep quiet and I’ll make sure you go down for conspiracy, incitement and anything else I can think of.”

Valjean shuffled his feet, the movement shifting his body on the chains.

“My money, if I were a betting man, would be on you.  Dusautoir has only been here five minutes.  What does he know about escaping a bagne?  You on the other hand, can’t help yourself.”

Valjean set his gaze on the wall behind Javert and set his jaw in firm defiance.

“You’re in the middle of it, I’m sure of that.”

Valjean’s continued silence regarding the escape was to be expected, so Javert shifted his attack.

“You know what the irony of all this is?”

Valjean looked at Javert.  In response, Javert picked up the two conflicting documents detailing Valjean’s incarceration on double chain.  He held them up in front of Valjean, who frowned at the two sheets held at his eye level.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Javert.  “I forgot.  You can’t read, can you?”  He was relishing the opportunity to grind him a little deeper into the dirt.

“I’ll summarise,” he continued.  “Someone wrote the wrong release date on this one.”  He shook the sheet in his right hand.  “You’ve got ten more days’ to serve in that shit-hole.”

Valjean’s defiant stare was now shot through with fear and disbelief.  His eyes were wide and dark and he was starting to pull on his chains, as if he was trying to back away from the fate that awaited him.  Javert found that reaction deeply arousing.  He was also enjoying the fact that his prisoner couldn’t be sure he was telling the truth.  That he couldn’t know if it was just a tactic within the interrogation.  Javert could see that uncertainty breeding with Valjean’s fear and he found it to be a heady mix.

“The irony of it is, if they hadn’t fucked up your release, you wouldn’t have even been there last night, conspiring with Dusautoir.”

Valjean looked away and Javert could see the wheels turning inside his thick, convict’s skull.  Javert stepped closer, brushing his fingers along Valjean’s cheekbone, cradling his face.  He tried to pull away again, but he couldn’t move far.

“Shhh,” said Javert, running his other hand over the cuffs that held Valjean’s wrists, stilling him.  “Been looking forward to this,” he said, quietly.  He glanced at the guards outside the door, checking their backs were to the room.

He tilted Valjean’s head towards him and forced him into a kiss.  The resistance from those sullen lips enflamed Javert and he pressed harder, working his own mouth against Valjean’s, trying to force an opening.  He slid his hand down that still-firm body until he held Valjean’s manhood in his grasp.  The thin fabric of the prisoner’s breeches meant Javert could feel the heat of him as he began to rub and stroke along Valjean’s length.  The prisoner moaned, in protest or pleasure or both, Javert didn’t care, it gave him his chance and he forced his tongue deep into Valjean’s gasping mouth.

As Valjean hardened at his touch, Javert slipped his hand inside and scuffed his thumb over the seeping tip, smoothing it down his shaft, slicking his fingers.  Gagging him with his own mouth, Javert silenced Valjean’s moans, working his lips and tongue even as he worked his hand faster and harder.  He wouldn’t be able to hold out against Javert’s attentions for much longer, Javert could feel it in the convict’s breath, rapid and hot against his own.

When Valjean began to thrust into his fingers, helpless sounds escaping from his captured lips, Javert removed his hand and stood back, his own erection straining at his groin.

His prisoner was helpless, his hips still rolling, with nothing to bring him off but the faint brush of his cotton breeches.  He hung there on the brink, his breath panting, twisting in his restraints, powerless and tormented.

Javert sat down in his chair, took a cloth from the desk and took himself in hand.  He locked his eyes on Valjean, his anguish and distress feeding Javert’s lust as he brought himself to a deep, satisfying, necessarily silent climax.  He came hard into the bundle of cloth, his breath a series of rapid gasps, all the while watching Valjean’s struggle against his chains and against his unreleased arousal.

The strange concert of their breathing began to fall into a more usual rhythm and as his own erection faded, he saw that Valjean’s was too on the wane.  The convict was staring at him, shame and fury in conflict, the two emotions fighting for supremacy in his dark, obsidian eyes.

Javert tidied and tucked himself away, dropping the stained cloth under his desk.  He stood, straightening his breeches.  He pulled his shirtsleeves level with those of his tunic, tugged the hem of his uniform, then re-centred and smoothed his cravat

“Dusautoir is going into solitary for a week,” he said to Valjean, coming back to the reason for the interrogation.  “We haven’t told him that, though.  He doesn’t know how long he’s in there for.  As far as he knows, it’s up to him.  He strikes me as the sort who might struggle with that sort of thing.  Even for a paltry week.  What do you think?”

Valjean looked like he wanted to tear his throat out.  Javert laughed.

“He’s in there now.  He’s been told if he wants to talk, to ask for me.”

Javert took a deep, satisfied breath.  From a frankly appalling start to the morning, he felt he had salvaged a reasonable outcome so far.  And regarding his glowering prisoner, how could he not feel satisfaction at the man’s state?  He may have been away from him for two years, he may be away from him for ten more days, but Javert was gratified to see he still had the measure of this convict, he still had the power to physically and emotionally wreck his carefully constructed stoicism.

He never wondered why it was such a thrill with this particular prisoner, he chose not to interrogate his own thoughts on the matter in too much detail.  He held the same theoretical power over every man in the bagne, but as far as Javert was concerned, the fact was it was Valjean who chose to present himself, by dint of his behaviour and by way of his escapes, time and again to Javert.  What else was Javert to do, but his very best to break the man’s insolence?  In the face of his recidivist tendencies and outbursts of extreme violence, Javert was certain of his duty and certain of his execution of them.  He was surefooted, convinced of his calling and in that, he would use whatever methods produced the desired result.  He was also resolute that his long, bitter struggle for his current status would never be undermined, not by a convict, not by a subordinate, not by _anyone_.

“Still got nothing to say?” Javert asked into the airless silence of the guardroom.  He stood close to his prisoner, close enough so that the man would feel his breath at his ear.  “When Dusautoir talks, and he will talk, you’re going down for this.”

Valjean turned his head away, he was glaring at the floor.

“If you confess now, the sentence may be lessened.  I could… ask for clemency on your behalf.”

A single shake of his prisoner’s head, it was a dismissal of Javert’s offer, but it also managed to communicate contempt for the proposal, his lip hinting at a snarl supressed.

The stupidity and self-sabotage of the convicts in his charge never failed to amuse Javert.  The reformers never saw their relentless idiocy, never saw their baser instincts given sickening free reign.  They never saw how vile and degenerate and violent their behaviours remained, even after decades of incarceration and punishment.

“As you wish, 24601.  Guards!” Javert called.

The two men entered the room.

“You know where he’s going?”

“Yes, sir.  Down to the double chain.”

“Take him,” said Javert.

“Very good, sir.”

The guards unlocked Valjean and pulled him out of the room.  The man went with little fuss, at least knowing physical resistance was a pointless exertion, especially where he was going.

Javert watched the empty, open shackles as they slowly stopped swinging.  Valjean would be back in them soon enough, back in his hands, back in his direct power.

Of that Javert was certain.


	5. Chapter 5

Valjean was locked into the shackles in the Guard Room.  The space was lit by oil lamps and painted with looming shadows.  He had been pulled out of his bunk after dark, the last of the late summer sun having long since sunk below the horizon.

“You’ve been very quiet lately,” Javert said, stalking closer now Valjean was secured.  “These last few months, basically nothing.  No fights, no insubordination, no nothing.  When a troublemaker goes quiet, I get suspicious.”

Valjean exhaled and continued staring at the wall behind Javert.

“So, I had to ask myself, ‘What’s going on?’, ‘What’s he up to?’” Javert paused, his eyes picking over Valjean.  “But what I find out is, you’ve been taking the literacy class.  I won’t lie.  That really threw me.”

“It’s my right,” said Valjean.

“I’m not denying that.  What I want to know is why?  And why now?”

Valjean shrugged in his chains.

“You’ve had nearly seventeen years, you’ve never bothered before.”

He didn’t reply, he knew Javert well enough by now to know when his jailer was about to launch into one of his ‘sermons’.

“I’ve never understood the point of those classes,” said Javert.  “All of a sudden all the bleeding hearts in the region were flocking to the gates wanting to teach reading and arithmetic.  Especially keen to get their hands on the young ones.  All that effort, all that time, over some _delusion_ you can teach a man to not be degenerate.”  Javert snorted.  The contempt in his voice was growing.  “And for the likes of you?”  Javert spat out each syllable: “A total, complete waste of time.”

Despite Valjean’s best efforts to ignore him, the words had found their target.

“You’re an old dog, Valjean,” Javert continued.  “You’re the wrong side of forty for a start.  And you’ve never learned anything without it being beaten into you.  The fact you’ve had more than a thousand lashes bares that out.  The idea –“ Javert sniggered to himself.  “The very idea of you wanting to _better_ yourself…”  Javert started to laugh.

Cruel and harsh, it was the sound of clashing rocks in Valjean’s ears.  He looked at Javert and a deep, corrosive hate boiled-up in his chest, a volcanic rage that he had been supressing for months and years was, within seconds, going to erupt.  He’d been working himself into exhaustion every day in the quarry, hacking at the rock as if it were Javert’s implacable face.  When he split a rock, he was splitting Javert’s skull, when he carried the baskets of stone on his back, they were the remains of Javert’s shattered corpse.  Working himself to the point of collapse was one way he had found to keep his temper in check, intense work and the physical pain that accompanied it would smother his overwhelming anger, at least for a few precious hours.

Valjean began to yank his wrists in the shackles, the unforgiving iron digging into his skin, biting into his bone.  It wasn’t enough.  He twisted his hands, increasing the pressure, pulling harder.  He needed more pain.

Javert’s laughter faded.

“Stop that.  Now!” Javert ordered.

Valjean didn’t, he struggled harder, the raw skin on his wrists beginning to bleed.  His fists were clenched, his arms bent, muscles straining as blood trickled into the sleeves of his shirt.  The beam above his head creaked.

Valjean saw him pick up the lash, Javert having misinterpreted his efforts, as intended.

“This came off an English Navy ship,” said Javert, keeping his distance whilst showing off his acquisition.

Valjean ceased his struggles.

The whip was short-handled, with thickly platted leather forming its grip.  There were more than half a dozen leather strips hanging from it and small barbs of metal glinted in the lamplight, several embedded along each strip.

“Nasty looking thing,” said Javert.

It was indeed.  It looked vicious, like nothing Valjean had seen before.  His breath quickened as Javert stepped behind him.

“I’ve wanted to try this on you since I got it.”

The flogging, while it lasted, erased everything.  The shame of Javert’s hold over him, his helplessness, his anger at himself, they all withered under the searing intensity.  Javert was beating his useless rage into submission, replacing violent emotion with overwhelming pain.

He was crying out, but he hardly heard it, because he was nothing.  He was nothing but pain.  It was impossible to hold onto any thought under the onslaught.  Whilst the whip fell upon him, he was obliterated.

It had torn through his shirt as it had torn through his skin as it had ripped through his thoughts.  The cloth hung in shreds, sticking to his back with blood and sweat.  He was on his knees, hanging from the shackles in a stupor, his mind numb, his thoughts in tatters in the aftermath of the lash.

Semi-conscious, Valjean’s eyes flickered open at the sound of a dull thud.  Javert had thrown the whip onto the desk, the heavy leather grip hitting the table-top with a thump.  Javert was still breathing hard when he turned back towards Valjean.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

Valjean let his head drop, he had nothing to say because there were no words, and there were hardly any thoughts.  The lattice-work of lash marks had torn across his mind as much as they had his back. 

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

But Javert’s voice was fading and the room was fading and he was fading and for a time there was nothing, there was only blissful, empty, absolute nothing.

 

 

When Javert had shown him the two versions of his release date from the double chain, he had not been able to read them.  He hadn’t been sure if Javert was telling him the truth or a sick lie.  He had tried to keep track of his time in that stinking _salle_ , but so many days and nights had been lost to fever and delirium, he had quickly lost count.  Javert’s mocking was usually something Valjean had to suffer in humiliated silence.  But after brooding on Javert’s taunts for ten long days whilst serving the remainder of his sentence, Valjean realised there was something he could do.  It would be a kind of revenge, if not on Javert directly, then on his sneering and on his smug, self-righteous attitude. Valjean could learn to read.

When he’d begun ask after the convicts who already took the class, there were not many of them.  When he did manage to find someone who attended, he was told that the new Brother, Brother Ignatius, would let them practice writing their names.  This was in direct conflict with every rule of their incarceration.  Valjean, having made up his mind whilst in double chain, had then felt an irresistible impulse to attend.  That news had strengthened his resolve one hundred fold as not only would he learn to read and write, but he would be allowed to write _his own name_.

When he had plucked up the courage and entered his first class, there was an odd atmosphere in the small room.  It unsettled him at first and it had taken a little while for Valjean to understand that it was calmness.  It was the lack of threat which had made Valjean wary.  The constant menace, either from guards or fellow convicts, was something that demanded vigilance; it demanded a defensive mind-set that had become second nature to Valjean.  Its absence set his nerves on edge until he began to understand the rules of the prison hulks didn’t necessarily apply in this space.

Brother Ignatius was a large, broad man, taller than Valjean, quietly spoken and with endless patience.  He started by showing Valjean the alphabet on cards, each letter on its own square.  He took Valjean through them, five at a time, until he soon had the whole list in his head.

There were old timers who were allowed to help out in the class.  They were helping the handful of students who were further along, whilst Brother Ignatius took the occasional new student under his wing.  Valjean’s fellow convicts were keen to share what they knew and as long as they spoke about the lesson, they were allowed to talk to each other.  There were guards outside, but they took little interest in the class, a mirror of their superior’s indifference.  The assumed irrelevance of the class gave them breathing space.  Brother Ignatius was always at pains to remind them they would only be left alone to study as long as there was no trouble and, remarkably, there had been none.

After his third lesson, Valjean had the names, order of the letters and their sounds memorised.  Having had his mind lie fallow for so many years, Valjean found that it was thirsty for work and was as strong and untiring as his body.  Brother Ignatius had taught him rhymes and games that he could recite in his head as practice whilst in the quarry or in his bunk.

The first time he had written his name correctly, Brother Ignatius had placed his hand on Valjean’s shoulder in confirmation and congratulation.  As his eyes had passed over the letters, their sounds formed in his mind and he had quietly said his name over and over.

When he looked at the marks on the slate, when he had read his name, a surge of something he had rarely felt had risen inside his chest.  It was a burst of pride which was overpowering.

 

 

As Valjean came around, beneath the screaming of his wounds, some clarity had returned to his thoughts.  The class had become a solace, something secret, something sacred, something that was _his._ He could not, he would not, confess any of this to Javert.  He tried to get to his feet but he was too weak from the flogging.

Javert walked up to Valjean.

“Stay on your knees.”

Valjean stilled himself, awaiting the inevitable.

“You know how I like it,” said Javert, unbuttoning his breeches.

The first time Javert had fucked his mouth, Valjean had done nothing but suffer the assault.  Javert had schooled him over the years, with beatings, with canings and with very occasional, deeply confusing kindness, and now Valjean knew exactly what Javert wanted from his lips, from his tongue and from his throat.

Javert was not yet hard, so Valjean had to begin by teasing him to attention.  It happened quickly, Javert’s erections were conditioned to the action of Valjean’s tongue and he stiffened as Valjean slid the curl of his tongue down the thick shaft.  He moved up and down, his lips, slick with saliva, sealed tight, dragging the delicate skin over the solid core of Javert’s manhood.  He could taste it when Javert began to seep into his mouth, and he swallowed, his throat closing over the tip of Javert’s cock.  That brush of his throat made Javert moan, as it always did, a long, low gasp of pure pleasure that had him begin to buck into Valjean’s mouth.  He opened his mouth wider, letting Javert take over the rhythm of the act.  After several deep, slow thrusts, he pulled back, Valjean’s signal that Javert wanted his tongue to take over again.  He dipped his head and he rolled his tongue over the end of Javert’s leaking tip, and he felt him shudder as he slicked it along his whole length over and over.

Javert’s hands gripped Valjean’s head, strong fingers digging into his scalp and Valjean knew he wasn’t far off now.  When the fingers linked together at the back of his neck, the thrusting into his mouth became almost impossible to take and he started to choke.  Javert was now slamming into the back of Valjean’s throat and when he came, it was a struggle to swallow it down without retching.

When Javert finally withdrew, he trailed semen and saliva onto Valjean’s lips.  He tucked himself away and then he ran his hand over Valjean’s face in a rough caress, trailing his thumb over Valjean’s open, reddened lips, wiping his own issue from them.  He then pushed his fingers into Valjean’s mouth, tipping his head back so that he could look into his eyes.

“You did good tonight,” he said, still breathing hard from taking his pleasure, still pushing and probing Valjean’s mouth with his fingers.  “But don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

He pushed his fingers down the back of Valjean’s throat.  He gagged on them, his throat spasmed against this latest invasion, his eyes watering, his breath choked off.  After a moment, Javert withdrew his fingers and wiped them on Valjean’s shirt.

“Don’t for a second think I’ve forgotten.”

***

The next day, Javert was waiting when Brother Ignatius arrived in his classroom.

The man put down his bag and bundle of papers and held out his hand to Javert.

After a moment’s contemplation, Javert shook it briefly.

“To what do I owe this visit, M. Javert?” the Brother asked.

“The classes you run have come to my attention.”

Brother Ignatius frowned a little.  “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I take your meaning.”

“The type of convicts attending these classes.”

“Any man is welcome at these classes.”

“Exactly.”

There was a deep sigh from the Brother.  “These men have been judged once.  It is not my place to judge them a second time.  Any and all are welcome.”

“Any you’re not bothered as to why they might attend?”

The Brother seemed bewildered by the question.  “I am at a loss, sir.  They are here to learn basic skills of arithmetic and writing, nothing more.”

“Does it not bother you that these ‘skills’ could be put to… non-Christian uses?  That they could be used in the commissioning of further, more serious crimes on their release?”

Brother Ignatius folded his hands and pressed them to his lips.  There was a look of profound concern on his face.  Javert felt satisfaction begin to rise; he was clearly getting through to this soft-hearted fool.

“I am deeply disturbed by what you have said,” Brother Ignatius said.

Javert was about to speak, but the Brother continued.

“These men leave here with nothing but scars from the whip and a pittance of a wage.  How are they to avoid falling back here, if they have nothing to build on but that?”

Javert scoffed.  “They are degenerate, of course they will be back here.  Don’t you understand?  You cannot make a good man from an evil one, it makes no sense to try.  _Nothing_ that you do here will make any difference.”

Brother Ignatius was shaking his head slowly.  “I profoundly disagree with what you are saying.  Profoundly.”

Javert’s lip curled.  “From now on, I want lists keeping of who attends which class.”

Brother Ignatius opened the drawer of his desk and took out a piece of paper.

“These are the attendances for the last month, M. Javert.”

The convict’s numbers were listed on the left, the dates of the weekly lesson across the top, a check-mark next to each name, cross referenced to the date.  Javert’s expression curdled into a sneer.  He looked at the list then at Brother Ignatius.

“Should you wish to see further back,” said the Brother, “I have those going back to the beginning of the year.  Further back than that…”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Javert.  “See they’re kept up to date.”

“May I ask, why the sudden interest?”

“That is no concern of yours.  How these prison hulks are run is my concern and you are here by invitation of my superiors only.  Understand that and we won’t have any problems.”

“I understand perfectly, M. Javert,” Brother Ignatius said softly.  “There have been no ‘problems’ and I do not see that changing.”

“Your opinion of what constitutes a problem differs from mine.”

“How so?”

“I’ll be posting two additional guards to supervise inside each class.”

“I can assure you, M. Javert, that is not necessary.  My lessons have never had a single issue and neither did my predecessor’s.”

“As I said, my concerns differ from yours.  This isn’t up for discussion.  Two guards in the class, two at the door and I want a copy of the attendance records weekly.”

Brother Ignatius looked pained and at least that was some small pleasure, to get something of a reaction from his placid, pious face.

“You shall have your records and your placement of the guards is your own affair, however, I will protest, should they interfere with the teaching that takes place.”

“Protest away, should you feel the need.  Good day, Brother Ignatius.”

“And to you, M. Javert.”

Javert strode from the classroom.  Even though he had achieved his aims, the Brother’s manner had gotten under Javert’s skin.  He felt as though he needed to wash, it was most odd.

It took Javert most of the morning to shake the feeling, his irritation and suspicion eventually filling the space.  These were fed by his certainty that there was nothing innocent or wholesome about Valjean’s attendance of the lessons, despite Brother Ignatius’ naïve assurances.

It was a little before noon when there was a knock at Javert's door.

"Prisoner 24601 has been taken to the infirmary, sir," the young guardsman reported.

"What?” Javert said sharply.  “What happened?"

"He collapsed, by all accounts and they were unable to rouse him.  Brother Ignatius has asked for you to attend the bedside."

Javert threw down the ledger he had been studying.  “Has he now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” Javert said loudly, standing emphatically.  “Let’s not disappoint the holy Brother.”

When he arrived at the infirmary, Javert sought out the attendant on duty.

"It appears,” said the man, nowhere near being a doctor, “that he collapsed due to blood loss and heat exhaustion.  He is also suffering from a low grade fever."

Javert huffed in irritation.  It would seem Valjean was not faking the symptoms.  "How long will he be here?"

"If the fever does not worsen, it should be a few days."

When Brother Ignatius emerged from the ward, no doubt brought forth by the sound of Javert’s voice, his annoyance ratcheted higher.  The man’s face was creased with concern.  It was a nauseating display.

"M. Javert," said the Brother.  "Come with me, if you will."

Fuming, Javert allowed himself to be led into the ward and past the rows of beds and idling prisoners.

Valjean was near the far end of the room, lying on his front, his head resting on folded arms.  Sweat lay on him like a second skin as he shivered in the August heat.  He was not conscious.

His back was covered with a white cloth that had been soaked in brine.  It was stained pink with his blood.  Brother Ignatius lifted the cloth and showed Javert the result of the flogging.  The hundreds of tiny wounds were open mouths, torn deep into his flesh, each one a silent scream.  Javert had not seen them with such clarity the night before.  They had been covered by the convict’s shirt and covered in his blood.  Cleaned and open to the air, Javert could see the terrible effect the English whip had had on Valjean.  Where his flesh was not torn it was bruised purple-black, a thin sheen of sweat and some kind of salve made the beaten skin shine sickeningly.  The pain he had inflicted must have been horrific and Javert began to feel something stir within him.

Brother Ignatius replaced the damp cloth and he turned to face Javert.

"I should like an assurance this man was not flogged for attending my class."

Javert clamped down on his arousal and regarded the Brother with a steady gaze, allowing his contempt to build in its place.

"He was not.  However, it is none of your concern why or how a prisoner came to be disciplined."

"What was done to this man was not discipline.  I know the result of a scourge when I see one."

"Do you?"

"Our Lord was beaten with such on his way to Calvary."

Javert felt his anger rising.  "You, a supposed man of God, dare to equate _that_ with Jesus Christ?"

"They are both men who have suffered grievously at the hands of others."

Javert had had enough of this accusatory nonsense.

"You will confine yourself to the classroom,” he said, “and the route to and from it."

"M. Javert, are you barring me from visiting the infirmary and ministering to the sick?"

"You will confine yourself to commenting on the results of your classes when and if you are asked for them.  Your insights into any other aspect of the bagne are as unwarranted as they are unqualified.  I thought I had made that clear earlier today.  Your contributions are not welcome.”

“You have indeed made yourself clear, M. Javert.  As clear as a bell, sir.”

“Should it become necessary, I will arrange for you to be escorted to and from the classes.  I will not have civilians wandering the bagne.  Now if that is all.”

Javert held out his arm, indicating Brother Ignatius should leave.

“May I pray for you, M. Javert?”

Javert stared at the man, this useless, idiotic, gullible reformer.

“That, sir,” said Javert, coldly, “is your own business.”

The Brother nodded to himself and left, but not before he’d glanced down at Valjean, murmured something and then crossed himself.

Javert watched him go, stony-faced.  Allowing men like Ignatius into the prison hulks was the thin end of a very dangerous wedge.  Javert was minded to write a report on the current situation, which when complete he would submit to the Commissaire.  His superior was no doubt unaware of the parlous state of affairs, that these reformers were undermining the very basis of the system which he had sworn to uphold.

No, the current situation could not be allowed to persist.  It would not be allowed to persist.


	6. Chapter 6

Javert had been snapping and barking all day, at both his subordinates and at the prisoners.  A feeling he did not fully recognise had stealthily taken up residence in his head and in his heart.  It had begun a week before, when his paperwork had shown that preparations would shortly be needed for Valjean’s release.  The feeling had left him short of temper and sick in his stomach and the whole of the bagne had been feeling the harsh edge of his mood.

There was a tap on his office door.  It was tentative, as if designed to irk.

“What?” said Javert, as a guardsman entered.

“I thought you’d want to know, sir.  Sergeant Lacroix hasn’t arrived for duty today.”

Javert was on his feet immediately.  “You’re dismissed.”  He was pulling on his coat before his door had closed.

He took a horse from the livery and galloped through the streets at a frankly irresponsible speed.  Javert did not give a moment’s thought to the people that had to scatter as he tore through the streets of Toulon.  His old mentor had been unwell these last weeks, dragging himself into his office, coughing into a ragged cloth.  The doctor had prescribed expensive medicines that had done little but lighten the man’s purse.

Javert yanked his horse to a clattering stop outside Lacroix’s lodging house.  He leapt off and bounded up the stairs two at a time.

“Lacroix!  Lacroix!” he yelled, hammering on the door.  “Open up!”

There was no reply, so he took a determined step back.  The lock broke on the second assault from his boot, its metal heart bursting open, splintering wood.

He moved swiftly to the back room, but halted at the threshold.  He could see the curtains were drawn and Lacroix was still lying in bed.  The old man’s head was tilted, his mouth slack and slightly open.  His arm was hanging out of the covers, the back of his hand resting on the floorboards.  His fingers were gently curled, as if at rest.

From having observed for those brief seconds, it was clear to Javert that Lacroix was not breathing.

Javert approached his old sergeant and knelt at the bedside.

He lifted the old man’s hand off the floor and took it in his own.  It was dry and cool, the warmth he’d had in life slowly ebbing from his body.  Javert folded the fingers of his hands over his sergeant’s and said a silent prayer.  He then laid the old man’s hands over that stilled, silent chest and left the rooms.

There were arrangements to be made.

 

Lacroix’s funeral took place two days’ later under a blinding midday sun.  There were no clouds, little breeze and no shade in this part of the cemetery.

A few of his fellow guards had attended but other than Javert, there was no one who appeared to have been close to the old man.  A long life, a life that had clearly been given to service; he had been a decent man in a hard world.  Javert stood to attention, in full uniform, sweating and grim-faced, as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

When priest concluded the service, the small party of guards began to disperse.  Javert remained, looking into the grave.  He had seen a lot of death.  He had ordered it, on occasion.  He had never felt like this before, not even when he had heard that his mother had passed.  Javert had felt oddly removed since Lacroix’s death, but standing there, staring into the ground, he felt something shift within him.  It was a sense of something giving way with a slow, dull snap in the centre of his head. 

He could see the sextons, stood in the shade of a tumbledown tree, leaning on their shovels, waiting for him to move off.  He didn’t want to move, he wanted to stay and stare.  And so he did, whilst sweat ran trails down his back, soaking his shirt.

The rough wooden planks of the coffin were covered with a scatter of dry dirt.  A few handfuls had been thrown in at the conclusion of the service.  He could hear the sound of it hitting even now, the dull, hollow spatter of a handful of dust.  The dirt was grimed into Javert’s palm, dampened and clammy.  He had nothing to wipe his hands on, so he'd curled his fingers into a fist, concealing the marks.  The grit of it was unpleasant, but it felt important to hide the mess of it. 

When he finally felt able to leave, the sun had moved a quarter hour past noon.  He heard the shovels hit the pile of dirt as he walked away.  He felt the thud of the earth on the coffin lid like a punch in the chest but Javert did not pause.  Sweating, dirt-smeared and shaking in the heat, he made his way through the churchyard, through the myriad stone monuments and the unmarked graves alike.

Javert appeared for all the world unmoved and upstanding, but as he strode back to the bagne, a blistering rage was building and building and building.

 ***

Valjean was dragged into the Guard Room, filthy, hungry and exhausted.  He knew he had done nothing to deserve being hauled before Javert, but that no longer made any difference.  It hadn’t for a number of years.  Valjean buried the anger as best as he was able and resigned himself to the particular attentions he was about to be subjected to.

“No,” said Javert, as his wrists were lifted to the shackles.  “Not today.”

The guard looked at Javert, as if he had not heard clearly.  “Sir?”

“Leave him as he is.”

Another quizzical glance, this time from Valjean himself.  A deep sense of unease unwound in his stomach and squirmed there like a serpent.  The guard released his arms and Valjean let them settle awkwardly at his sides.

“Would you like me to stay, sir?” Javert’s subordinate asked uncertainly.

“No.”

“If you are sure...”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.  Get out.”

The guardsman left, taking up his position outside.

“Well done you,” said Javert, snarling and circling.  “You managed it.  You managed to keep yourself in check all this time.  _Well done you_.”

Valjean wanted to look behind him, but he didn’t dare move.  When Javert came to a halt in front of him, Valjean’s stomach pitched over.  Javert was almost shaking with rage.

“Take a swing at me.  Go on.”

Valjean did nothing. 

“It wouldn’t be the first time.  Do it.”

Valjean shook his head and remained rooted to the spot.

Javert slapped him hard across the face.  Determined not to react, Valjean merely straightened and stared at the wall.  Javert struck him again, harder this time, the swipe of it snapping his head sideways.  He took a moment and then once again, he squared his shoulders and looked forwards.  Outwardly impassive, inside Valjean was seething.  His face stung from the blows, but the humiliation of it stung more, the naked provocation roared in his ears and the fear of what he might do burned in his heart.  He wouldn’t even have to make contact.  Just the attempt would be enough, it would be all that was needed.

Javert was inches from him, leaning up, glaring into him and Valjean could see there was something deeply, deeply wrong.  There was something dark and twisted swimming in the depths of Javert’s eyes.

Then Javert spat in his face.

Valjean didn’t move.  He barely flinched.  His eyes did, however, dart an involuntary glance towards the empty shackles that hung from the ceiling. 

“Do it!”

“No,” said Valjean, Javert’s spittle running down his cheek.  He didn’t dare wipe it away.  If he so much as raised his hand, he was done for. 

“Remember what it felt like?  You want to do it.  I can see it, written all over your face.  You can’t hide it,” Javert said, “not from me.  Not after all this time.  Hit me.”

“I won’t.”

Valjean had seen him angry before, but he had never seen him like this, literally spitting and almost feral.  He realised he had never truly seen Javert lose control.  He had seen him lost at the moment of release, but even then he was never dispossessed of himself.  To see a man of such iron will quivering with fury sent cold bolts of fear through Valjean.  There was so much more at risk than just a beating.  Years of cultivating his own kind of self-control would all be thrown away, if Valjean should surrender for just one fleeting second to his own boiling rage.  How _dare_ Javert do this?  He was less than a week from release.  He could see it, he could _feel_ it, and, despite his best efforts, he had started to believe.  He was so close that he had started to believe he would finally be free. 

Yet until that happened, he was still Javert’s plaything.  Anything but a game to Valjean, his future and his freedom hung on these next moments.

Javert had stalked off to his punishment store.  Valjean took the time to try to quell his rage.  This response was something that had been honed by years of fending off fellow convicts’ aggressive and violent attentions.  Fighting fire with fire was a necessity when it was the only weapon available.  That strategy was not one he had recourse to now.  Responding to Javert’s provocation was simply not an option, however much his mind screamed out for it.

This was clearly why Javert had gone to his store.  He had seen Valjean’s resolve and was going to up the ante.

Javert was now standing in front of him, not with a whip or a cane, but with a wooden paddle.  Flat and broad and covered in leather, it had made its acquaintance with Valjean’s backside on more than one occasion.  As far as Valjean was concerned, this didn’t seem like an escalation.

He was, however, mistaken.

“How about this,” said Javert, his anger simmering.  He began rubbing the flat of the paddle slowly over Valjean’s cock.

Valjean swallowed, his mind spiralling, as he began to respond to the relentless pressure.

“If you want me to stop,” Javert breathed, “make me.”

Did Valjean dare to take a step backwards?  A darker part of his mind spoke up.  Did he want to?  The sensation was so subtle and so seductive, his body ached for it.

“Lay a single fucking finger on me.”

When he did nothing, when he only tried to control his own helpless urges, Javert drew back and slammed the flat of the paddle into Valjean’s groin.

Creased in agony, Valjean collapsed to the floor, unable to speak or think or move.  A thin whine of pain was all he could manage as his hands uselessly gripped his thudding manhood.  He squirmed on the deck, overwhelmed with pain.

“Get up.”

Gasping and retching he managed to get to his knees.  It was an age before Valjean began to struggle to his feet, the heavy chain that shackled them dragging on the boards.  The agony between his legs was white hot, wrenching, ripping.  He could hardly stand up straight and he thought for a blurred, fogged moment he might pass out. 

“Hands by your side,” Javert ordered, a scowl screwed onto his face.

Valjean was still holding himself.  His tight grip was the only scrap of relief that was available to him.  When he let go, a wave of nausea rolled over him and he hung in unsupported and unprotected agony.

When Javert hit him again, Valjean couldn’t help a howl of pain as his knees gave way.  He was on the floor, writhing helplessly at Javert’s feet.  When he was ordered to stand, it took far longer for him to do so.  He was on his knees, leaning forward, hands between his legs and his forehead on the deck.  He was close to vomiting. 

When he finally managed to stand, he felt as though his abdomen had torn open.  Every breath was short, sharp, gasping and on the brink of turning into a cry of pain.  He was filled with dread as to the damage Javert was inflicting upon him.

“Hands by your side,” said Javert.  “I won’t tell you again.”

Valjean let go, his face stamped with pain.  He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.  When Javert hit him for a third time, he found himself once more incoherent on the floor, choking and squirming and gasping.

“Hands away!” Javert yelled.

Valjean, curled on the deck, complied and then moaned in pain as he felt Javert’s boot nudge aside his cock and jab into his swollen, aching balls.  The pressure increased and Valjean couldn’t help a long, low cry of pain.

“Please,” he begged, breathless.  “Please.”

Instead, Javert kicked him hard between the legs.  A strangled cry escaped Valjean’s throat and he twisted in agony.

“Useless, pathetic, degenerate filth,” Javert snarled.  “Get him out of here!” he yelled.

Half-mad with pain, Valjean felt hands on his arms and he was pulled to his feet.  Stumbling and staggering, he was dragged out of the Guard Room and down to his _salle_.  He crawled onto his bunk and his feet were chained in place, a deep, thudding knot of agony coiled between his legs.

 ***

“I had never expected to have such a conversation with you, Javert.”

“I am unclear as to why I am here,” Javert said, by way of a reply.

Being summoned to the Commissaire’s office without prior appointment or notification was not something Javert was accustomed to.

“It relates to an incident from two nights ago.  Laroche says you were alone with a prisoner in your Guard Room, whom you directed was to remain unrestrained.  You, of all people, should not need reminding of the regulations.”

Javert was sick with anger.  Laroche.  Keen, new and stuffed full of his own self-importance, this _child_ had seen fit to report him.

“I had my reasons,” said Javert.

The Commissaire raised an eyebrow.  “Indeed.  It would seem you were trying to goad the man into hitting you.”

Javert’s lip twitched.  Laroche had truly stuck the knife in.  Breathing through gritted teeth, Javert said nothing.

“I see from your lack of denial that it is true, then?”

Javert could hear the disappointment in his superior’s voice.  He didn’t like how that made him feel.  It made him feel small.

“As I said,” Javert ground out, “I had my reasons.”

The Commissaire nodded.  “And those reasons are?”

“He is a dangerous man, of unusual strength.  He is due for release in a short number of days.  I do not believe he is fit to be on the streets.”

His reply was met with a look of bewilderment.

The Commissaire took a moment and then said, “Am I to understand you were hoping to be attacked by a violent, dangerous convict, in the hope of preventing his release?”

Javert frowned.  He was confused by what had just been said.  Spoken out loud, laid out so bluntly, it sounded insane.

“And when the man refused, you beat him.  You beat him for not attacking you.”

Javert was thinking deeply, trying to find a way to make what he had done seem as rational to the Commissaire as it had seemed to Javert those two nights ago.

“I have noticed your recent… agitation, shall we say?” the Commissaire continued. 

“Sir?”

“You may think me somewhat removed from the day to day happenings, but I have my ear to the ground in many ways.  You have not quite been yourself and it has not only been Laroche who has raised concerns.”

“Really?” Javert asked, his mouth as dry as dust.

“I know you have a history with this particular convict.  I know that you were close to Lacroix.  Therefore, I will be placing you on administrative duties for the next four weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” said Javert, his ears ringing and ringing and ringing.  “What?”

“You will have no unsupervised contact with any convict.  You will restrict yourself to the offices and Guard Rooms only, and two other officers will be in attendance whenever a prisoner is being processed.  Is that clear?”

“It is, sir, yes,” he replied, feeling as though he was falling inside himself.

“I don’t expect we will need to have this conversation again.”

“No, sir,” said Javert, chastened and chilled by his superior’s decision.  “We will not.”

 ***

That lingering glance Javert had given his manhood.  The remnants of the bruising were still visible, if one knew what to look for.  Valjean had ignored him.  It was the last look at the last damage that man would ever inflict on him.  Yet still Javert would not spare him, bating him, taunting him, still trying to get that one last rise out of him that would condemn him all over again.

But now the chains and the prison rags were gone, it was Valjean who stood there victorious.  He had the prized yellow passport in his hand and he could read that his freedom was written there.  When he bellowed his name at Javert, it was a roar that had been held, locked inside, for so many long, miserable years.  To shout his name was like shouting, ‘FUCK YOU,’ and though it tore at his throat, he would have yelled it for an hour if he could.

With clothes on his back he had not seen in two decades, with a small knapsack, a scatter of belongings and his paltry wage, Valjean was led off the galley and through the courtyard of the prison proper.  The sensation of walking freely, of not having each and every step impeded, was deeply strange.  He kept looking down, unaccustomed to the sensation, unaccustomed to the lack of iron dragging on each footstep.

Valjean was now stood at the gates of the bagne as they opened in front of him.  They had opened for him so many thousands of times and every time he had been chained and shackled, bearing that terrible weight, both physical and mental, through the streets.  This time he would not be weighed down, hobbled or restrained.  He would walk out, free, into a city that would no longer spit on him.

 ***

That feeling, buried deep in the meat of him had continued to churn.  In the days since Valjean had been gone, it had only gotten worse.  Javert put it down to concern and disquiet for the crimes that Valjean would now be free to commit.  He was wrong, of course, but acting on his increasing certainty in the matter gave Javert some sense of control over the raging sickness that knotted his guts.

He had a copy of Valjean’s itinerary in front of him.  Consulting the list, he began his first letter.  He addressed it to the constable at the first stop on Valjean’s mandated journey from the prison hulks.  The letter was to be both a warning and an appeal.

This particular convict required particular monitoring and Javert was not convinced the provincial police would take the risk he posed as seriously as they should.  After first outlining the dangerous nature of this felon, Javert then asked for a professional courtesy; that the constable inform him of the prisoner’s movements and conduct.  When the first letter was completed, Javert set it aside and drew a fresh sheet of paper towards him.  He then wrote an identical letter to the next town and then the third and the fourth and the fifth on the list, until each town had its own caveat and request.

Since Valjean’s release, there had been several prisoners hung from the shackles in Javert’s Guard Room.  Now, however, the guards remained in the room with them.  The prisoners were dull, indolent and vicious but Javert was struggling to care about the offenses and misdemeanours that had brought them to his office.  He decided their punishments as if by rote and he felt nothing but a remoteness that only shifted when his thoughts turned to Valjean.  He had never before been _bored_ by his work.  Even back in the day, marooned in records, he had never felt the kind of empty irritation and impotence that he now felt. 

There was little in his outward demeanour that reflected his strange alternating moods of numbness and churning anger.  He would not give the Commissaire any further excuse to reprimand him or give the likes of Laroche the satisfaction.  He still had that kernel of bloody-minded determination.  A whetstone set in the hard centre of him, it was all that was getting him out of bed each morning.

 ***

The only thing people seemed happy to give him were directions to the next town on his list.  Nervous, suspicious and desperate to have him gone from their village, those he managed to get to speak to him were only too keen to show him the road out.  They were also keen to watch him leave, making sure they saw him disappear over the hill or around the next bend.

Whenever he was around people, there were eyes on him, just like in the prison hulks, waiting, watching.  He knew that he looked like a convict; there was a reason they gave them the brutal haircut and yet left the beard to overgrow – no one outside the hulks looked quite so savage and ragged, no one else wore that peculiar combination.  It was just something else to mark him out on those first days out from Toulon.  He had asked for a shave at each town with a barber, but had been turned away at each, often before even entering, the proprietor hurrying to head him off before he could darken their door.

When he’d caught glimpse of himself in the window of one such establishment, he had been shocked at his appearance.  He had an idea of how he looked only from what he had seen of his fellow prisoners.  To see himself with his own eyes, so changed and damaged, so ravaged by the regime he had laboured under; it had jolted him to his core.  He had stood for a long number of seconds, uncomprehending as his memory of himself resolved into the haggard present.  Then the owner had emerged and threatened him with a stick, so he had slouched off, head down, reeling at the loss of a boy who’d been gone for twenty years.

 

Entering the village of Correns, Valjean approached the officer who was sat outside the police station.  Bored in the heat, the man suddenly straightened at his approach, immediately wary.  Valjean took out his yellow passport and presented it to the officer.  From the corner of his eye, he could see a group of men had stopped their conversation and were looking over at him.

From previous experience, he had a very short amount of time to get to the local inn, grab some food and drink and be out of there before the men, who would inevitably have gone to quiz the constable, started to spread the news of the convict in their midst.

Small villages and tiny towns, he had grown up in them and knew that gossip and suspicion were as much a lifeblood as bread and wine.  It was a fact he didn’t even question, that it would be all over the town by nightfall and that he would be sleeping in a hedgerow again.

For once he had managed to get some food, so he ate it quickly and greedily, after carrying himself off to a secluded corner in the shadows.  When he was done, he did what he did each day.  He subjected himself to the repeated humiliation of asking for work, of offering his unique abilities for hire, only to have them repeatedly thrown back in his face.  Of the villages and towns he had passed through, out of the dozens of times he must have asked, only three times had he been given any work.  And not one of those times did he feel he was given a fair wage.  He had spat at the feet of the last man who had cheated him, a man who had then threatened to set his dog on him.  Valjean had seen no dog, but just the threat of trouble was enough to get him moving without further complaint.  He could afford no confrontation, however small or insignificant, but the injustice of it burned and burned.  It was as if a pyre had been built in the very heart of him and the almost hourly humiliations only served to heap fuel upon it.  As soon as they knew he was a convict or even just suspected, they saw his weakness, they saw their chance and they ruthlessly chose to exploit him.

 

Days later, he saw Digne appear in the distance, scattered on its mountain top.  High above the valley mists, it stood golden in the early morning sunlight.  It looked like a lost citadel rising from a dream, the very image of a thousand fairy-tale castles.

None of this moved Valjean.  The longed for release of freedom had soured and curdled.  The hope that he had clung to for so many years had been quickly and brutally crushed.  It had turned, twisted and been transformed into nothing but hate and despair.

It left a bitter, desperate man trudging towards the small town of Digne and, unknowingly, towards his destiny.


End file.
